New and Ancient Amateurs
by westwindhowl
Summary: One the Consulting Detective, the other the Oncoming Storm. And when a stubborn big blue box who knows what's needed brings these two together to solve a crime neither can alone…Well, things on Bakers St just got a bit complicated.
1. Start of Something Grand

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who and Sherlock are the property of the BBC and the characters created by Steven Moffat. I don't claim ownership of any of the characters portrayed or mentioned in this fan fiction

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><p>This body was old: that much he could feel from the way it gave and sagged just a bit too much around the edges. But that was quickly made up for by its mind, so unlike all the others. This brain was lightning quick and efficient, taking in and storing every little detail with ease: the building was made no less than forty years ago judging by the texture of the walls for instance. And the reek of the dead that slipped from the cabinets had been masked with a sodium hydrochloride solution for another. The pesky glow would dissipate with time as he settled and for now he simple stood, clenching and unclenching the fingers and rotating the wrists. It would certainly take some getting used to—the feeling of having wrists and fingers and the sensation of moving them.<p>

"It'll do for now. Could've gone a few sizes down and we'll add some glasses. Though it's really an improvement, wouldn't you say? What you had before was just so…_sparse_."

That voice was different through ears, still decidedly male but more sing song and random with qualities he hadn't been able to hear without them. Dangerous qualities. He squinted the eyes—the vision was off—and attempted to study both men but with minimal results. The man speaking wasn't spectacularly tall, short brown hair with pale skin. But he just couldn't make out any details.

"But we should all give a great big round of applause to Mr. Hetser, boys and girls! He's the one who stitched it up special just for you. After all...walking around with a bullet hole through the shoulder is _so_ last season!"

"Oh, I worked so very hard on it!" a new voice (also male) said, this one with false appreciation layered on thick, "It's good though, isn't it Jimmy? None of that messy family business to take care of."

"Quite. And now that I've scratched your back it's only polite to return the favor, don't you think so my dear? Oh don't worry! It's just a few teensy little things! Steal a few things, leave a few clues, a monkey could do it really." The first man spoke, genial enough, yet he got the distinct impression the question, directed solely at him, wasn't really a question.

"…Of course." The words ended up slightly slurred, spoken from a mouth and in an accent he didn't yet know the specifics of.

"Good! Very good! I think this is the start of a beautiful working relationship between the three of us! Now, on to your first little favor…"

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><p><strong>AN: Bit of a short start but never fear, this is just the prologue! I know this basic premise has been done before but I have big things planned for this fic that i hope you'll enjoy! I'd really appreciate some helpful criticisms along the way, particularly about how I'm managing (or not managing) to keep everyone in character. Also, feel free to review and tell me if there's anyone you'd like to make a small cameo from either series and I'll try to work that in! Also, there are going to be alot of little mysteries in this fic and if you definitely figure them out at some point please don't announce them for those who haven't! First official length chapter should be up sometime today since i just need to proof it one final time before it's all ready.  
><strong>

**Thanks!**

**~Windy**


	2. Diner Dashing

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who and Sherlock are the property of the BBC and the characters created by Steven Moffat. I don't claim ownership of any of the characters portrayed or mentioned in this fan fiction. The song "Waking up in Vegas" is copyrighted to Katy Perry.

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><p>"<em>Shut up and put your money where your mouth is, that's what you get for waking up—"<em>

"_**Doctor!"**_

The melodic, if slightly off key, singing was abruptly cut short by the red heads cry, bouncing off the walls of the TARDIS and just managing to carry over the pulsing beat of the 21st century pop hit. The Timelord stumbled a bit, having been caught mid spin, luckily catching himself against the railing and gazing down at the female Pond incredulously.

"Amy! It was just getting to the best part!" he frowned, his tone dangerously close to a whine.

"The first time round, yes. But it wears of a bit after the _twenty seventh_!" Amy snapped, sure that chorus would be stuck in her head for the rest of her life thanks to him.

"Oh, come on now Pond! We're going to _Vegas_! We need theme music!" the Doctor encouraged with a grin, hoping to steer his companions mood into a less dangerous territory with a reminder of their destination, "I'll tell you what: I'll bring the paper along and we'll just psychic ourselves right into one of those lovely penthouse suites for the night!"

"Don't you have to pay for those suites?" the male half of the Pond couple questioned, emerging from the lower hallway of the TARDIS, still fiddling with the top buttons of his dress shirt.

"Normally, yes, but I haven't had to pay for anything in the last…oh…six hundred years! Why start now?" the Doctor replied, happy that at least Amy found his comment funny judging from her smile, as he hopped down from the main console to survey the Ponds dress with a critical eye.

Some careful rummaging through the TARDIS Wardrobe had done the job very nicely: a snappy pair of slacks and dress shirt for Rory and a green and blue wrap dress for Amy. They'd be thrown right out on their backsides walking into where they were planning on going in their normal attire so they'd had to make due. According to him The Doctor hadn't needed a change of clothes—his normal tweed-and-bowtie outfit would look 'just marvelous' but TARDIS democracy had won out and he had been forced to change. But, luckily for them, the ordeal of finding just exactly what the Doctor would wear was swiftly avoided as his current clothes were found already laid out, Amy and Rory both sure in their opinion that it was the TARDIS's way of getting her vote in. It took a bit more cajoling after the vote but finally the Doctor looked properly dressed: a well-tailored grey two-piece coupled with the white dress shirt and red tie was something the alien wore well. With some more poking and prodding Amy had even been allowed to slick the Doctor's hair back. All in all the space-and-time travelers cleaned up well.

It was then, with a slight jerk that had them all stumbling and a deep thump from it's depths, the TARDIS landed. The Doctor clapped his hands, striding towards the doors and turned but continued on, effectively walking backwards, in order to both address the couple and reach the doors:

"Fine dining, an exciting nightlife and might I say some of the best casinos this side of the galaxy it had an admittedly small start in 1931 with just one casino. But not soon after it spread, to become the premier hot spot to both win and lose your entire life savings in just the span of a few minutes! Lady, gentlemen and TARDIS alike, I give you-" with this grand introduction the Time Lord spun round, pushing the TARDIS doors outwards with an even grander flourish, "Las-"

The scenery before him stopped the Doctor right in his introducing tracks. Instead of the simmering heat and bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip rain and alley walls greeted him. And beyond the mouth of the alley paved sidewalks and pedestrian traffic, modern cars and noticeably not neon backlit shop signs. A prim little Poodle walking by with its owner, taking notice of the strange blue box sitting at the end of the alleyway and gave a shrill bark-but the animal seemed to be the only one: no one on the street had noticed their sudden arrival. The scent of trash was thick so far down the alleyway and the Doctor wrinkled his nose at the smell—made even worse by the general dampness—as he took notice of the steady rain slowly soaking his jacket. Definitely not the dry, sunny Nevada they'd been hoping for.

"Doctor?" Amy inquired from inside the TARDIS, her voice echoing out as she approached him to peer over his shoulder and frown at the landscape, "Right… This" a gesture was made to the whole of the place before them, "definitely isn't Vegas!"

"Quite right! Wonderful observational skills there Amy." The Doctor snapped the TARDIS doors shut just as quickly as he had opened them and jogging up to the main console, "So let's have a look and see where exactly 'this' is."

"Hate to say it but…it almost looks like London." Rory, having moved to stand over by the doors to have a look for himself, peered out of the front windows and into the rainy alley before them, the name of their destination coming out in unison between him the Doctor.

"England, late morning of November 6th 2011 somewhere in Marylebone. Just a bit north of Regent's Park I'd say!" The Doctor continued on after Rory, intently studying the screen before him.

"Okay, but how'd we end up almost back home when we were shooting for Nevada?" Amy asked, impatient to get her hands on a dry martini and a few rolls of nickels.

"No idea!" The Doctor proudly declared as he scurried about the main controls, turning this lever and pushing that button, punching something quickly into the typewriter at one end, "Some sort of temporal instability along the way, a stray bit of rift energy pulling the TARDIS in—she has been a bit peckish you know! It's been a while since our last pit stop in good old Cardiff!-Not to worry though, just reentered the coordinates and on our way we go!"

With the word 'go' the Doctor pulled that one last lever that usually had them up and away, hurtling through the vortex and falling all over themselves in the initial takeoff. He even braced himself for it, hands grasping the controls firmly. But, even after a few moments of expectant waiting, nothing happened. Not a shudder, not even a hint of the normal _vworp! vworp! _of the TARDIS taking off. The Doctor immediately looked concerned.

"Come on now, old girl! Bound to be some tasty rift energy in the desert?" The Doctor called into the silence as he studied the main column for any hint of movement in its glass center, hoping her preferred endearment would encourage the great machine into action.

Nothing. Not a hint of a peep from the TARDIS depth.

"…Okay…Right…London it is then!" the Doctor affirmed with a clap of his hands, keeping the same level of enthusiasm about seeing London as he had Las Vegas.

"Hang on! London? We're kissing Vegas goodbye for _London_?" Amy questioned with a finger pointed towards the doors, clearly doubtful of the swift finality of the silent decision made between the boy and his box.

"Nothing for it I'm afraid. She just won't start up. Can't exactly go cross the ocean in a time machine that won't fly, can we Pond?" The Doctor said, pocketing the sonic screwdriver as well as the psychic paper.

"What do you mean '_won't_ start up', Doctor? Is she dead again, like with the House?" Rory asked, attempting to understand the Doctor's level of finality.

"No, no, nothing that serious! She's alive and well, in tip top shape and ready to fly as always! She just won't. She's refusing, being stubborn, putting her metaphorical foot down, laying it on the line; pick whichever one you want to use. The TARDIS isn't moving so _apparently _we're needed here." The Doctor ranted, ticking the options of phrasing off on his fingers as he listed them, "Now we just need to figure out what for."

An hour and a half's purposeless wandering brought the trio several blocks over as well as an end to the rain, leaving the London air chilly and damp—nothing to different from the norm for winter. All had changed their clothes back before locking up the TARDIS, none of them seeing any sense in traversing the London streets all dolled up with nowhere to go. The foot traffic had lessened somewhat, leaving the sidewalks clear for the trio to walk three abreast and Rory free to question their direction unobstructed.

"No idea! No trouble in sight so I figured out best bet would be to wander about until trouble saw us! The TARDIS wouldn't have stranded us here without a good reason so something must be going on, something not very obvious, something just under the radar…" The Doctor trailed off then, casting a critical and suspicious eye around the streets for that very something, "…But until we find it we might as well enjoy ourselves! Who's hungry?"

That question and several minutes passing landed the group in a fairly empty diner round the corner, the Doctor seated across from the Ponds in one of the booths, with Rory digging into a plate of ham and eggs and the Doctor expertly ignoring the flirty looks of the waitress who'd taken their orders by informing him of their lodging situation.

"Well, we can't exactly rent a room in an inn—who knows how long it'll take for the TARDIS to let us leave. We'll just have to use her as our hotel and eat out often." The Doctor said, casually topping his stack of pancakes with the barbeque sauce he'd swiped from another table, "I can reformat a few rooms to make them a bit more comfortable for possibly longer-than-short term. Might even finally be able to track down that one master bathroom—haven't really seen it since the mid-sixties."

Rory didn't even bother to question how the Doctor could lose an entire room—instead content to just give him an utterly dumfounded look- as Amy arrived back with her milkshake and took the seat next to him. No longer quite so perturbed at the lack of penthouse suites in the area as she sipped her milkshake she quickly took notice of pair of slightly odd (and devilishly attractive, at least for the latter half) men that had arrived moments before, having taken their seats more towards the front.

The pair were exact opposites of each other: one (the handsome one) tall and very lanky, more slim then any healthy man ought to be, with a mop of dark, curly hair. The other was shorter in hair and height and stockier, seeming much more relaxed and casual. He was the only one who was eating anything, his friend was too busy seemingly studying every inch of the diner and the only other group in it: them. From the flop of the Doctor's hair to the color of Amy's nail polish the man seemed to take notice of every little detail of every aspect of the place as if it were as natural as breathing. Odd…

"Doctor," Amy began, keeping her voice to a whisper so the ones in question wouldn't eavesdrop, "Who—"

But she was quickly cut off by the sound of sirens approaching, blaring and shrill, which preceded several police cars passing the diner at an alarming speed. The Doctor snapped to attention at the sound, an absurd grin on the Timelord's face, as he twisted around to catch a glimpse of the cars whiz past. Quickly finishing the last bite of his BBQ pancakes he stood and, completely ignoring the order from the waitress to stop and pay for the meal, almost ran towards and out the door.

"Come along Ponds!" he shouted over his shoulder, said pair still a bit to confused to automatically follow him; however his words snapping them into their usual procedure for these types of situation: follow the Doctor.

"You owe me a milkshake, Doctor!" Amy called as she ran after him, only stopping to grab her jacket and her husband's hand to be doubly sure he followed.

"Yeah, and me the rest of that ham and eggs!" Rory added as he was half dragged along behind his wife.

What either failed to notice in their haste to not lose the Doctor completely was Lanky Yet Handsome taking notice of every word, action, tone and inflection of their departure and Stocky And Less Attractive (Amy having dubbed them so in her mind) inquiring about their sudden leaving.

"Must have been a few of those ambulance chasers or something. Always quick to a crime scene." he, unknown to Amy actually called John Watson, asked as he watched the trio quickly dash after the squad cars.

"Unlikely. The man with the ridiculous hair was much closer to the couple then any strictly professional relationship—he called them by their last names but with an affectionate and familiar tone—but not enough to be involved with any one of them romantically." His companion, Sherlock, quickly deduced, as was his way, with an air of objective conviction.

Watson had the feeling the consulting detective would have gone on to point out every aspect of the trio's relationship he had discovered by studying the stitching of the man's shirt or the colors of the woman's hair if his phone had not gone off. He watched as Sherlock quickly extracted the device from his jacket's breast pocket and read off the text, Watson taking a sip of his drink as the detective announced with as excited a tone as Sherlock was capable of:

"I'm needed. A murder in the office building three streets over; suspicious wounds on the body similar to a violent animal attack."

Before quickly getting up, extracting a few pounds from his pocket to pay for the meal, and turning an expectant gaze towards his still seated colleague. The veteran couldn't help but sigh: he never got to finish a meal when Sherlock was around.

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><p><strong>AN: Poor John, he never gets to eat much with Sherlock around. But on the upswing this is the first official chapter and all our heros are in it! Please review and tell me if everyone is in character (especially Sherlock and John) or anything ou particularly liked. I hope you enjoyed this chapter nonetheless!**

**Thanks!**

**~Windy**


	3. A Whole New Kind of Eavesdropping

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who and Sherlock are the property of the BBC and the characters created by Steven Moffat. I don't claim ownership of any of the characters portrayed or mentioned in this fan fiction.

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><p>The crime scene was already taped off by the time the detective arrived, a few officers placing themselves in between the police tape and the gathering crowds. No sign of their 'ambulance chasers' judging from the faces in that small crowd of bystanders or those of the hopeful reporters standing further slightly back, no hint of the vibrant red hair or worn tweed jacket anywhere in sight. The presence of the actual ambulances within the police tape perimeter was standard procedure-but the fact one EMT was having a smoke rather than doing his job meant no one was worth carting off to the hospital. He was most likely to die of lung disease before the age of 65 as his pack was more than half empty but the carton itself not yet worn enough to be anything less than seven and a half, perhaps eight hours old. Stepping underneath the police tape, holding it up just long enough for John to slip under, Sherlock made a quick B-line for DI Lestrade.<p>

"Oh, good, you're here." Lestrade said once he had spotted Sherlock's approach, turning from a conversation with a police officer who clearly hated his job from the sloppy state of his uniform.

"It wasn't an animal, at least not one operating on its own; there's nothing large enough to 'violently attack' someone in central London, let alone inside a building." Sherlock cut right to the chase, glancing around to the police taped door of the office building he found himself at and ignoring Lestrade and Watson's brief exchange of nodding as the doctor approached.

"Which is why we texted you. Would have picked you up but you weren't at home when we sent the car around." Lestrade said, probably in his own way apologizing for Sherlock having to spend the cab fare but his attempt at small talk and inconsequentials was grating a bit on Sherlock's nerves, "Just follow the stairs to the third floor and down to the end of that hallway, I'll be up in a minute."

The office building itself was fairly new, built within the last five years, with a modern lift system that the police had blocked off to collect evidence. A waste of time: whatever animal had enough strength to carry out a mauling wouldn't be the type one could carry on a lift safely. An exotics collector turned murderer perhaps? Someone so used to being around mortally dangerous things wouldn't find the leap to causing it themselves to great given a large enough grudge. Carrying some small carnivore most likely—small enough to not attract attention but large enough to be able to commit such a crime. That ruled out the most obvious ones: large cats and bears and the like. Points to the perpetrator for the small bit of ingenuity: it wasn't as if there were fingerprint or dental records of individual animals as there were for humans. At least this wouldn't be painfully easy to solve.

"You said whatever did this couldn't have done it on its own. You think someone trained it to attack people?" John questioned from a step behind the detective's long strides but still managing to keep up.

"Trained or starved until training wasn't needed. Once we determine the type of animal we can start looking at all those without proper exotics licenses in the area." Sherlock doubted anyone who intended to use their animals to kill wouldn't bother going through the paperwork first.

"How do you know they're local? Or that it's exotic?" John asked as they hit the stairwell and began the assent up to the third floor.

"The text message I received didn't give a name so whoever was killed wasn't particularly important to the company or unusually wealthy. Why go out of the way to bring an animal any distance just to have it attack someone unimportant? Next, the text message said 'violently attacked' which implied a mauling; both of which a common pet dog or house cat wouldn't be capable of no matter the size. Besides, if they're going to use an animal to kill someone why choose something so boring?"

Sherlock's explanation had carried them up the two flights of stairs and to oddly shaped third floor, one having to round two corners to reach the main stretch of the hall—rather like a letter U with a particularly long first side. And he was about to continue into the hall itself when, upon opening the door from the stairwell voices, echoing through the empty office space, reached his ears. One voice was distinctly Scottish, the red headed girl called Amy from the diner who had commented about her milkshake. The next was the man who had run out to follow the squad cars, sounding rather excited and surprised and the one the red head had called 'Doctor'. The detective put out a leather gloved hand to bring Watson up short, giving him a moment to hear the voices before proceeding with caution. He heard the shuffling sound of something sliding against denim, Watson getting out his Browning no doubt, as the pair crept close enough for conversation to be made clear, hiding around the first corner.

"Not to worry Amy, it's just a Stigorax! A bit like Terra Alpha's version of a wild dog really. Totally harmless, completely tamable! 'Course…. this poor bloke didn't think so since she's the one that killed him." The man called 'Doctor's voice, a note of guilt lacing through it when he regarded what was probably the body. Then a high pitched buzzing followed by a click of something setting into place before the man continued, "Several hours ago now. She probably got scared off by whoever found him and phoned the police; she's just now coming back to bury him somewhere for later."

"But if it's from Terra Alpha or whatever what's it doing…hunting in an office building in the middle of central London?" this was Amy's voice again, having no trouble pronouncing the foreign name but having trouble finding the correct verb for what the creature had done.

"Hey, don't you go and get snippy with me! Helen A would be ashamed of you, killing humans willy nilly on a Level 5 planet!" The so called Doctor again, not in reply to the Scottish woman's, followed by a low growling, reminiscent of a dog or some larger creature but, in the same moment, nothing like Sherlock or Watson had ever heard from any dog. "Of course you have to eat but you don't have to go killing an innocent temp! Lovely people, temps…Anyway, right, Amy, funny thing is the Stigorax were wiped out first thing by the humans on Terra Alpha years ago. So this one shouldn't even exist let alone have made its way here."

The man had clearly let his guard down as the next things to be heard was the sound of claws scraping the floor, a startled cry from the Doctor and concerned ones from the other two, then more sounds of claws against the tile floor as the animal somehow fled. Behind him Sherlock felt Watson tense, the exclamation prompting him to act and help whoever might have been injured but he Sherlock's outstretched arm held him back. John just hoped he knew what he was doing; all three of the people just out of sight were clearly under some group insanity.

None of the three bothered to give chase from the lack of hurried footsteps, the conversation picking up again with a hurried rustle of heavy cloth, no doubt the Doctor frantically taking off the tweed jacket he'd been wearing in the diner.

"My jacket! It tried to eat my jacket!" the man exclaimed, clearly very alarmed and concerned about the state of his clothing.

"I _really_ don't think it was aiming for the coat, Doctor. Did it bite you?" finally, the second male's voice, filled with concern and an attempt at professional authority on the question. No doubt someone in the medical profession, though not very confident in his abilities.

"What? No, but who cares about that! Rory, _look at my jacket_! It's got a…a _giant hole_ in it!" The first man was clearly more concerned and now outraged about the state of his clothing then his wellbeing, words failing him to describe the damage done. That suggested a certain level of childishness and a high level of energy inherent to his personality. But the level of knowledge he had displayed about whatever had fled the building and the implications of it being firsthand simply didn't match it.

"It should have gone for the bow tie." Amy now, half mumbled in a halfhearted attempt not to be heard, a sharp gasp from the Doctor followed.

"Amelia…Don't even joke like that!" his voice was high and tight with horror that, to Sherlock, had no business being there when talking about clothing.

"Sherlock? John?" Suddenly Lestrade's voice from behind them all, Watson jumping at his back at the Inspector's voice cut through the silence.

Before either Sherlock or Watson could react both heard a quiet, urgent whispering as all three of the group quickly fled (two pairs of rubber soled sneakers, and a pair of wooden soled dress shoes—all more five years old-from the noise against the tiles), the other door at the end of the hall quietly opening then closing several seconds later, the sound of Lestrade's voice continuing to call for the pair just masking the pound of feet as they raced down the stairs. But by the time Lestrade rounded the first corner Sherlock and Watson both were on their feet and standing away from the wall, Sherlock the picture of normalcy though Watson looked slightly nervous.

"Have you even gotten to the victim yet?" Lestrade asked, his tone clearly hoping for a yes but expecting a no.

"W-we….um." Watson began poorly with a clearing of the throat in an attempt to cover it, his mind to busy attempting to unravel some sense out of the mess of a discussion he had just heard to think of a proper excuse.

"We were gathering evidence in the stairwell. Whoever our perpetrator is couldn't have taken the lift from downstairs with an animal that size so the only option left available would be the stairs, and the animal itself would be more identifiable by paw print then by any tooth or claw markings we might find on the body." Sherlock's tone exuded confidence and conviction; even John would be convinced if he hadn't heard the previous conversation.

"Oh…Well, fine. Let's go and have a look then and I'll walk you through what we initially found."

The rest of the night had Sherlock's mind split: one part listening to Lestrade and John as the doctor examined the gruesome and bloody wounds, one part with the slightly damp scrap of tweed burning a hole through his pocket that he'd stealthily picked up from the hall without anyone's notice, and the rest with the trio, jogging quickly out the back of the offices and through the night, all the way back to the alley just a few blocks over from the diner where they had all begun that morning. And, in reality, the place where it would all begin as well. Every mad, splendid and frightening bit of it.

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><p><strong>AN: A bit of a shorter chapter this time by about a thousand words. A lot more of Sherlock for you Sherlock fans though it's challenging coming up with all those deductions. But the next chapter should be a lot longer and a bit quicker paced so buckle your seat belts for the next one because that's when everything really begins. And you get Whovian points if you know what episode of Doctor Who Helen A or a Stigorax is from! So i hope you enjoyed this chapter, helpful criticism is always appreciated and get ready for the next one! And keep sending in those reviews, they inspire me to write my best if i know people enjoy it!  
><strong>

**Thanks!**

**~Windy**


	4. Help Comes in All Forms

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who and Sherlock are the property of the BBC and the characters created by Steven Moffat. I don't claim ownership of any of the characters portrayed or mentioned in this fan fiction

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><p>'<em>Did you mean: <em>_**stigmata**__?'_

The words stood out at the top of the page he was currently viewing, sharp and bold and red against the white background of the screen. A day and a half, just a day and a half and he was already resorting to modern technology, Google even. Sherlock resisted the urge to have a row with the inane guesses of the search engine—but he wouldn't stoop to John's level and have a row with any piece of technology. The religious phenomena of bearing the wounds of Jesus Christ had nothing to do with the creature they were looking for, of that much Sherlock was certain. He hadn't expected to find any competent results anyway; if a day and a half's worth of scouring every one of the encyclopedias, dictionaries and various other reference books under 221B Baker St's roof yielded no results then what in the name of sanity had made John think a 21st century search engine would give them an answer? Even that crumpled note from weeks ago, the one Sherlock had personally received in the post that after the series of letters was easily deciphered into numbers and the name in the phone book those numbers led to was determined hadn't helped. Yet another waste of time on this case.

Multiple possible spellings, various ways of punctuation in the main probable languages and the not so probable ones—all had been checked and rechecked. And there had been nothing, absolutely nothing on whatever the bow tied man had called whatever their suspect was. So, the logical conclusion left to them would be that whatever the creature was its name wasn't from any known language on the planet, meaning it wasn't from the planet…just as the Doctor (which Sherlock knew was merely a title of some kind) had suggested in the first place. Logical, yes, but that didn't mean it wouldn't get him laughed out of the police station or thrown into an asylum. But never the less Sherlock had to accept the most logical answer, even if it was the most farfetched.

"Anything yet?" John's voice, through the open door as he came up the stairs carrying several grocery bags.

"No. Modern technology proves to be incompetent yet again." Sherlock's answer and subsequent fib came as though that was what he had expected all along, which he had, but that didn't mean he was any more content with the answer.

"And that bit of fabric? Nothing from that either?"

"The jacket itself is very well worn though only within the last two years. Before that it was in fairly good condition which means the jacket wasn't originally his. Tweed manufactured overseas, sold in a shop in Leadworth though the original owner is clean. There was some traced of dust and debris that I couldn't track and traces of saliva that were…inconclusive."

He saw John pause for a moment by the table as he set the bags down, the wheels of his brain clearly working though not with the answer they needed. He turned to face Sherlock, a hand to his mouth as if he were trying to arrange his words properly.

"This is going to sound completely rubbish and probably mad…but whatever that thing was obviously wasn't…natural. And those people couldn't have been either—a man with dust on his coat you can't trace who was carrying on a conversation with something that left no DNA at the scene, whose name isn't technically any known word in any known language and the DNA we do have is inconclusive. Whatever that 'Stigorax' was it isn't something someone could go catch with a bit of hamburger in the woods, Sherlock." The veteran seemed to doubt his words even as he said them but pressed on, the logical part of Sherlock's brain knowing it was all true.

"Precisely what I've been thinking. Whatever a Stigorax is it isn't from Earth, just as the Doctor said. Oh, don't give me that look John. The idea has been in the back of your head for just as long as it has been in mine. We just wasted a day and a half because we were hunting the killer instead of the one who knew what it was." Sherlock immediately shot down John's doubting look the moment it crossed his face, "A man with a jacket that's been to a warzone and back and two people with him who have no trouble with a word that doesn't exist—a man like that doesn't just go unnoticed, even if he's trying to."

In the time it took for the words to leave his mouth and for John to make his way over to the desk to peer over Sherlock's shoulder at the laptop screen Sherlock was already working faster than John could even hope to keep up with. Sifting through entire pages of results took moments and the results themselves less then as Sherlock somehow judged their validity with just a glance. But what Sherlock did find valid and useable was quite remarkable all the same: grainy photos on various websites of a man—three different men actually—in a time he had no right being in with the words "THE DOCTOR SEEN AGAIN" plastered beneath them over and over, a snapshot of a face in the crowd of many. But despite their being three completely different men the captions and blog posts surrounding the photos naming them all as 'the Doctor': very few of the bald headed man in leather with a blonde girl, many more of a shorter man with red sneakers and more hair—sometimes with the same blonde women, sometimes with a red headed older woman and others with a black woman—and a few more then the first of the group from the diner. No matter the date or location he looked the same, the same flop of hair and defined cheekbones and almost always with one of the couple in every photo, always in motion. They all were, all three Doctors always looking as if they hadn't aged a day between each photograph no matter the date.

"What are you two up to this late?" Mrs. Hudson's voice, from the doorway, gave both men a start.

A glance out the window told them hours had passed and night had fallen since Sherlock's epiphany, the windows were dark and John's shoulder was sore from sitting for so long. Somewhere along the way tea had been made and the groceries put away (obvious from the lack of stench from spoiled milk in the flat) and a notepad procured for Sherlock to write out key facts, the sheets stuck up to repaper the wall along above the sofa, the notes joined by print outs of various photos (which Sherlock insisted hadn't been tampered with) and maps pinpointing the locations and dates of various sightings-but John remembered doing none of it. The Doctor had stolen the last few hours right from under their noses without either of them noticing.

"Researching, Mrs. Hudson. Very interesting research." Sherlock said, head still bent over the laptop screen as he scrolled through another blog post, this one yet again by someone called Larry Nightingale who seemed to be a bit of an expert on all things Doctor.

"Another one of those serial killers Sherlock? Those always catch your eye." Mrs. Hudson had moved from the doorway and began to help herself to a cup of tea.

"Something like that, yes." John answered as he stood up stiffly, rolling his neck and shoulders in an attempt to alleviate some of the ache.

The click of Mrs. Hudson's sensibly shoes moved closer to Sherlock as she stirred a splash of milk into her tea. She peered over his shoulder at the computer screen, catching a glimpse of the man from the diner now two full days prior as the page was scrolled down and patted Sherlock on the shoulder.

"Good luck finding the Doctor, dear. He's always a difficult one to catch."

That stopped both men cold, silence pervading the flat as Sherlock stopped his frantic typing and denoting and John narrowly escaped spilling hot tea all over himself. Both men simply stared at Mrs. Hudson, the older woman humming to herself as she added a bit more milk to her tea as if she'd said nothing of remark. This lasted several more moments, John glancing at Sherlock before speaking up.

"Y-you…You know who this man is, Mrs. Hudson? You know about the Doctor?" John asked, stumbling over his words as he tried to grasp the idea that their sweet, naive little landlady knew of the man who'd beat them to the scene of a crime and conversed with a possibly alien animal.

"Oh, of course I do, everyone in the Silver Cloak knows the Doctor! We disbanded a few years ago, of course, but not before we tracked the Doctor down one last time. 'Course…he does look a bit different then the Doctor we were looking for but I can assure you, my dears, he's one and the same! Keep an eye out for a blue police box Sherlock and you're sure to find the Doctor not too far away. Well, I'd say it's about time for my soother. Goodnight you two, take care not to stay up to late!"

And with that grandmotherly bit of advice Mrs. Hudson was out the open door and making her way down the stairs to her own flat, teacup held high so as not to spill it. She seemed to take all of the sound out of the flat with her as it was for several more minutes neither Sherlock nor John said a word. Sherlock simply spun back around to face the laptop, his hands clasped and his fingers laced under his nose as his mind turned Mrs. Hudson's words over and over. The Silver Cloak rang a mental bell but it was likely he'd deleted further information as nothing followed the metaphorical sound. It was unlikely Mrs. Hudson knew any more then she was saying and pressing her for a retelling of 'a years ago' wouldn't yield much as this Doctor, as he was prone to do from the photographs, was apt to change his…well, his entire body really.

"I've heard about them, the 'Silver Cloak' I mean." John said from his seat in the lounger, clearing his throat before continuing, "They were in the newspaper a while back; I was catching up on what I missed when I saw it online. Apparently they were a sort of…crime watchdog group of senior citizens in Chiswick. Helped the police out on a local robbery and made the papers. But how would they know about the Doctor?"

"It makes logical sense they'd be able to track him down, the elderly hear about as much as the homeless. But at least now we have something look out for." Sherlock said, standing up to move over to the bookshelf and pluck a map of the surrounding area from it, laying it out on the coffee table to be studied.

"What? The blue police box?" John asked from his seat, taking a moment to mentally review what Mrs. Hudson had said moments before.

"Of course the blue police box! Any police box is rare these days, let alone a blue one; they were phased out of London during the early 70s. It must be hidden somewhere near the diner we were in this morning, though it was chance we both ended up there. And it isn't just a normal police box-if it's around the Doctor enough for him to be identified by it no matter his face it's some kind of ship."

"But what about the girls he takes with him, the blonde and the couple from the diner?"

"They go willingly, those two wouldn't have run after him had he taken them by force. The blonde girl was easy enough to find, her name is Rose Tyler—according to the online news she's been missing for over five years yet no one bothered to look. The question is why? What's he been doing, taking people from their homes for years on end, some of them never returning and working his way through history? What's the point of it?" Sherlock didn't look up from the map, steadily eliminating hiding places by their distance from the diner or their level of seclusion, half questioning himself as opposed to his colleague.

"Maybe…something like today? He said the Stigorax was from some other planet and even there it was wiped out. He said it hunts humans and the dead man was what it chose to hunt. Maybe he…goes around fixing things that aren't supposed to be there? Like some sort of…temporal handyman or something?" This was the only plausible guess John could come up with, as plausible as any idea could be when they were talking about an alien.

"I couldn't be that simple but forget it for now. There, the only place big enough and secluded enough to hide something as big as a police box!"

Sherlock's finger landed on the map, in a back alley between a tailoring shop and a bakery just a few blocks down from the diner. But the consulting detective didn't even pause enough for John to see where he was pointing, as quickly as he had found the place he was already picking up his coat from the back of a chair, never mind the darkness outside. And for the second time that week the detective leveled that same expectant look on the doctor, but at the very least this time John didn't have a meal to finish.

...

In all truth the Doctor had been waiting for them to arrive. Dashing out the back of that office building with the Ponds by his side the Doctor had made a mental note of those names. Sherlock and John. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson he later discovered as he looked them up in the TARDIS data bank. The world's only consulting detective and his physician had been spying on him—it was only a matter of time before the pair showed up on the TARDIS doorstep. That's just how humans worked, find out something unknown and either run away, try and shoot at it or go poke it with a stick-with a mind as sharp as Sherlock seemed to have the Doctor expected the latter. And so when the pair finally did arrive at the mouth of the alley, no doubt expecting to see the TARDIS standing there, they were instead greeted with the Doctor standing before it.

"I should congratulate you but it's a bit unfair really! People waiting their whole lives for me to drop out of the sky or spend it searching and you two manage it in, what, two days? I should make you wait." This was how the Doctor greeted them, no hints of accusation or anger in his voice. Infact he almost sounded impressed.

"You aren't exactly difficult to find if you're clever-and not many are. The only place that would fit a police box that size without being noticed yet in the area of the diner is right here. It wasn't difficult once we looked in the right direction." Sherlock kept his distance from the Doctor, knowing better then to approach something so utterly unknown just yet.

"Not for you though, is it? Nothings difficult for Sherlock Holmes! An ancient Chinese crime syndicate operating in London? An unassuming cabbie forcing people to kill themselves? It's a cake walk for you!" The Doctor seemed almost excited at the prospect before his tone turned serious, "So believe me when I tell you this isn't. Something not very good is going to happen, something even the cleverest of humans wouldn't be able to handle on their own. Or else I wouldn't be here, saving you humans again from whatever's on its way."

"Why tell us?" John piped up from behind Sherlock, contemplating on pulling his gun on a man that frankly made him feel like a child simply by the depth of his gaze.

"Because I'm going to give you two gentlemen a choice! I'm giving you the choice to back out now, to leave well enough alone." The Doctor's face was serious, this much they saw as he stepped forward into the light of a nearby street lamp, "Back out now, go back to your flat and ignore everything you heard in the office building. Pick up some normal case and go back to catching the normal criminals. Or…" and here the Doctor smiles a bit, his mouth turning up at the corners ever so slightly and his tone lightening "stick around and find out just what not very normal big bad is bringing the extinct back to life in the wrong solar system. Because it is coming back, I promise you that. The police were allowed to find out; the both of you were meant to be put on the case. Though I doubt I was meant to show up and we were meant to help each other and the old girl knew it before anyone else being the brilliant blue box that she is. Whatever this thing is knows about us now and won't be satisfied with just one person. Don't just pluck an extinct alien from extinction and fling it cross the galaxy to kill a temp for _nothing_."

The Doctor knew what option these men would choose before the words left his mouth. The two men that ran all the way into an alleyway in the middle of the night to confront who he knew they had figured out to be an alien—Sherlock Holmes would never be the type to run in blindly. There was no way they would just ignore it all and let it go. No, they were just like him in that regard, it was much more fun to find a large stick and poke at the squishy thing poking out of the dark and never mind the fact it might bleed poison or blink fire.

"You're suggesting we work with you? We don't really even know the first thing about you or what's going on!" John again, glancing over the Doctors shoulder for a moment at the blue police box and not bothering to ask Sherlock's opinion as even the veteran could see from behind the man that those brilliant and complicated wheels in his head were spinning, weighing every possible choice and option and consequence at light speed. For the army doctor talking about the man in abstract terms and best guesses (facts on Sherlock's part) was so much different than agreeing to dive with him into the preverbal deep end.

"There he is, John Watson! They don't give you enough credit, your name should be up on that website just as big and fancy as Sherlock's is! Yes, that is precisely what I'm suggesting and you're precisely right, you don't know the first thing about me and neither of us knows the first thing about what's going on! But then again you really didn't know the first thing about our consulting detective here either and here you are as his flat mate! He could have had a collection of killer bees or an interest in summoning the devil and you would have never known! But you're not just that daft, oh no, not John Watson! You're just that brave." The Doctor was grinning now, regarding John with a look the veteran could only interoperate as a kind of parental pride. As if the Doctor had seen it all, the war, all the cases he had been on with Sherlock and all the help Sherlock assured him he was, had stripped him down to the core of himself and was _proud _of what he found…

"I knew it, I knew there was something up with those two the minute I saw them! I tried to tell you Doctor but you were dashing off before I got the chance!" the red head, Amy, stepped out of the box and into the alley to stand beside the Doctor, poking him genially in the ribs in her triumph at noticing something before the Doctor.

Rory leaned halfway out the door to the TARDIS, Sherlock quickly taking note of the ambient golden light and heat coming from within the box, currently half way through eating and cinnamon bun and looked curiously at the pair across the alley and waited for the Doctor to introduce them. He didn't have to wait long.

"Yes, yes, lovely observational skills there Pond! Amy, Rory, this is Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. They'll be helping us out with whatever's causing this entire ruckus!" The Doctor slung his arm around Amy's shoulders if only to stop her from continuing to prod his side.

"We're glad to be working with you." Sherlock nodded towards the newcomers after quickly assessing them, almost seeming excited by whatever he had deduced from the Doctor, his friends or the big blue box.

"Oh, lovely! This is Christmas! The Doctor and Sherlock Holmes, working side by side, solving murders! Could do without the murders but still!" The Doctors energy level picked up, the man seemingly having to suppress the urge to jump up and down or clap his hands.

"Oh, come now Doctor, the murders are the interesting part." Sherlock strode forward and offered his hand, all traces of the caution he had regarded the Doctor with now gone.

"Right…high functioning sociopath, we'll have to work around that." The Doctor murmured, sticking out his own hand for Sherlock to shake, Amy chucking at the Doctor's tone.

Rory stepped forward and out of the TARDIS and, after wiping the cinnamon sugar goo off of his fingers and on to his pants, offered his hand to John.

"He has that effect on everyone. Making you feel like he's proud of you for just being alive?" Rory asked, knowing from the look on John's face the man was feeling what the Doctor often invoked in him, "Like he said, I'm Rory Pond…well, Williams really but the Doctor insists it doesn't work that way."

"John, John Watson. You've known him long?" John shook Rory's hand, feeling miles behind the rest of the group and had the feeling this man often felt the same.

"Not really. Known of him my whole life thanks to Amy. But we've only been with him for a few years." Rory glanced back at his wife, smiling at the bemused look on her face as she watched the two most brilliant minds in the universe converse.

" 'With him' ?" John felt the need to ask, the phrase seeming out of place given the context of the sentence.

"Right…come on then, might as well get this over with now." Rory clapped John on the back and began to walk back towards the TARDIS, opening the doors and letting the golden light John hadn't noticed until now spill across his face, the light seeming to be calling for John to find its source.

...

Miles away and far removed from John entering the TARDIS depths and into a world far beyond his imagination, a woman was running. Her bare feet slapped against the concrete floor, her heels have been abandoned at the start as the fear ran rampant through her veins. This shouldn't be happened, not to her, never to her. This only happened on the news, the anchor reporting on the body of someone else that had been found on the third floor of a parking garage with a detached yet sympathetic tone. But not to her. So why was she hearing the calm and eerie thump of orthopedic shoes and seeing the flashes of grey hair and sky blue fabric behind her, no matter how far and fast she ran? Why did she hear the click of what could only be a gun being raised up, the safety already cocked back? Why?

...

She would never know the answer as the gunshot rang loud through the parking complex. Because her body was the one that dropped to the concrete, the one for the news anchor to report on the next day with the same detached yet sympathetic tone.

And back on Bakers St Sherlock's cell phone would ring through the empty apartment with no one there to answer it.

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><p><strong>AN: A tip for all of you writers out there: never write an 8 page chapter over a 3 day span, or your sense for in chapter continuity will be horrible. Managed to add a bit of intrigue there at the end and I've always thought of Rory and John getting along, they're both the normal ones in their group and thus the most human.** **I just don't know how i feel about this chapter really, one moment i like it, the next i'm doubting all of it and the next i'm convinced it's the only way i could have done it. What do you all think?** **The little tid bit at the end will be heavily expanded upon next chapter in the Doctor and Sherlocks first official case together so stick around, readers! **

**And to InvisibleLlama, you are correct! Whovian points to you! And if you think the temps comment was sad...all I'll say is just you wait!**


	5. The Importance of Names

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who and Sherlock are the property of the BBC and the characters created by Steven Moffat. I don't claim ownership of any of the characters portrayed or mentioned in this fan fiction

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><p>Two murders in the last week. Even for urban, central London that was unusual. Detective Inspector Lestrade ran a hand through his prematurely silver hair as he looked down at the corpse of the woman at his feet. She lay on her stomach, the feet of her stockings covered in dirt and bits of gravel from her journey to the spot before the bullet had found its way into her heart. She seemed to be a fairly normal woman as murder victims went—nice jewelry, a designer purse they'd collected as possible evidence but nothing anyone would kill her over. But certainly not a woman anyone would chase into a parking garage and shoot. A robbery gone wrong? Had a thug tried to jump her and she'd gotten away, shot because the robber realized she had seen their face and acted rashly? No doubt Sherlock would scoff at those kind of simple explanations, but at the very least not as outwardly as he would in the past. John seemed to rubbing off on the consulting detective for the better…Ah, speak of the devil and he shall appear.<p>

Lestrade adjusted the neck of the light blue get up he was forced to wear as to not contaminate the evidence as Sherlock entered, swathed in the same large wool coat and scarf combo as always with John right behind him. Lestrade nodded to John as the veteran sighed at the sight of the woman and looked faintly surprised as another man followed John. He looked a bit like Sherlock; pale with much defined cheekbones and a strong jaw. But this man had more hair and was a bit taller by comparison. And he was someone Lestrade had never seen before and, as far as he knew, had no right to be on a crime scene.

"Who's this?" he asked Sherlock, knowing the consulting detective would never drag anyone unhelpful onto a crime scene.

"A cousin on my father's side, a detective. What's one more Holmes mind looking over a body?" Sherlock was already at his work, the small pocket magnifying glass he kept hidden out and combing over the body.

"Godric Holmes, very nice to meet you Detective Inspector!" The man in tweed introduced herself, giving Lestrade's unoffered hand a firm shake, "I knew a Lestrade once! Brilliant man, nothing like the evil witch the town accused him of being! Though, you know those Puritans, they didn't know any better!"

Luckily Lestrade didn't dwell on the man's words to much (since they made absolutely no sense and he took them for having some complex deeper meaning—this man was apparently a Holmes after all) and watched as Sherlock stood, pocketing his magnifying glass and, still looking at the body, turned his questions to Lestrade:

"Did she have any form of identification, something with her address? She'd been running for a long while before she arrived here: there are traces of grass and soil on the soles of her stockings. But not long enough to have dropped her purse. She smells heavily of roses, to heavily to be natural so she kept her perfume in her purse. The bottle broke when she fell to the ground and it splashed on her. Her car must be in the area."

"Her names Margret Freedman, she's 27 years old years old. She worked at the department store downtown—we're questioning some of her co-workers now." Lestrade had pulled out a clipboard with the beginnings of a case file on it, the piece of paper detailing all of the information they had found in the woman's bag.

He was about to go on but a clearly pointed look from Sherlock had him sighing and handing the clipboard over to John, clearly he was no longer needed. He glanced over at Godric who was standing over the body as well but with a…odd look in his eyes. Apparently the man didn't see a dead body very often but it wasn't a look of horror in his eyes. It was almost like…a detached kind of guilt. But in the next moment the look was gone and Godric was fiddling with Sherlock's magnifying glass.

"Five minutes, that's all I can give you!" Lestrade cautioned before exiting the floor of the parking garage altogether, knowing Sherlock would just complain if he stood in the corner.

"Good cover, 'Godric'. Good name for a Holmes." John complimented, watching the Doctor continue to fiddle with the magnifying glass and looking up with one of the wide grins that seemed to be his trademark so far.

"It was, wasn't it? Good name, Old English. Thought going along with the derivations would be best." The Doctor said, handing Sherlock back his tool when the detective thrust out his hand for it.

The previous night had been...well…certainly nothing John or Sherlock would have ever imagined. Sherlock took the sights and sounds of the TARDIS with much more stride then John and within the first five minutes was already quizzing the Doctor about the center console while his colleague was still stuck on the 'it's bigger on the inside' bit (which got a wild grin from the Doctor and a pat on the back from Rory before the two shared a look). The place was utterly massive, warm and filled with a kind of hum that was easily forgotten about after a while—akin to a plane's engines prior to takeoff or a car's motor as it idled in the driveway. The Doctor had explained the way to the bathrooms (of which there were apparently three) but the complex directions had been lost on the veteran. John, to his credit, didn't stand in the doorway with his mouth agape for long and listened to the Doctor as he talking lovingly and animatedly about 'the old girl'—he'd even thought he'd seen the Doctor stroking bits of it every now and again. But once Sherlock had been told he couldn't have a go at flying it ("She's being a bit stubborn, you see! The best I can do would be the next block over a few hours ago, never mind the next solar system in a hundred years." According to the Doctor) the detective had holed himself up in the TARDISs enormous library. John was content to stay in the main room, doing his best to keep up with the Doctors explanations of other planets and Time Lords and his age. By the time the Doctor had returned them to Bakers St Sherlock had to be dragged out and only then with several books under his arm and the Doctor's promise that he could check more out later—all he'd have to do was climb down two flights of stairs as the Doctor was currently renting out the basement flat.

"Any thoughts Doctor?" Sherlock asked, waving a hand to indicate the body at their feet.

"…Can we turn her over?" The Doctor asked quietly, almost hesitantly, as if it was a grave disrespect to the woman to turn her body over carelessly.

Sherlock nodded and did so with John's aid, adjusting the woman so her arms were straight at her sides and he head pointing upwards in preparation for whatever the Doctor had planned. Under John and Sherlock's curious gaze the Doctor knelt down next to the woman and, after a moment, placed two fingers of either hand against her temple. He sighed heavily, exhaling slowly as his eyes drifted closed.

"Doctor?" John questioned as he looked over the Doctor's shoulder at his actions with confusion.

"Telepathy. One of those alien perks I was talking about. I can share my entire life's story with someone in the blink of an eye—horrid method thought, had a headache for weeks, I wouldn't recommend it—and I can also access memories, even residual ones. Now shhh!"

"…But, wouldn't the brain-" John began at a whisper, intending his question for Sherlock but never got far enough.

"Stop talking, mind reading, hush." The Doctor said firmly, opening his eyes and turning to regard the two humans in the room with a stern eye, somehow managing to make it not unkind.

After a moment of watching the two to ensure they would keep their mouths closed (studiously ignoring Sherlock's slight smirk as he filed away that line for future use) the Doctor turned back to the woman, placing his fingers on her temples yet again and bowed his head slightly. This time, a few moments after he closed his eyes the Doctor inhaled sharply as his eyes moved behind his eyelids like a person does during a dream, but only this time he narrated what he picked up in a quiet voice.

"She's frightened…Left her heels a ways back, their nice but useless for running. Someone…someone behind her, she can hear them behind her…their shoes are heavy against the floor…she thinks their unusually heavy, but she can't _see _them—it's too dark, she's running too fast. But…but they're _not_ running, the shoes are to slow to be running...'Why, why, why, _why_?' Why her, why now? She _doesn't understand_, she…" with a great sigh the Doctor lifted his head and his hands, his eyes hidden by the flop of his hair, "That's it. She heard the gun being raised and that's it. They shot her."

Silence. For several moments silence rang through the parking garage floor. Hearing the last thoughts of a now dead woman was not an easy tension to break with any kind of lightness. Even Sherlock seemed to be affected in some way, quieted though his eyes still held a million questions. But then even he, in the end ever the unsentimental, spoke up.

"They were walking when she-" but even Sherlock was interrupted as John was, again by the Doctor but this time his tone was heavy and insistent.

"Margie." He said, standing from his kneeling position and tucking his hand into his breast pocket to pull out the silver and gold object he had identified last night as the sonic screwdriver, "She liked to be called Margie. Margret is an older woman's name."

"…When _Margie_ was running, yet she was running fast enough to not be able to get a clear view of them."

"Which means what, exactly? How is that possible?" John asked as the Doctor seemingly pressed a button on the back end of the screwdriver and passed the buzzing, green light over the body.

"Which means it wasn't walking, not really any way. Some kind of hyper speed that only sounds like walking, or floating maybe, floating's always fun!" The Doctor's mood seemed to lift by his own sheer force of will as, with a flick of his wrist, he extended the screwdriver and glanced at the results.

"We'll need to have Lestrade get the CCTV footage, one of the cameras had to have captured something." Sherlock said, glancing around to the corners of the garage where the cameras sat, capturing it all.

"No traces of energy, no ectoplasm or alien goo on her. So whatever this was is walking around as a human." The Doctor said, flicking the sonic closed and re-pocketing it, "Which means it'll be hard to spot, which means unless we can find that gun this could be a bit tricky."

Several hours later the trio was once again a quintet and once again in the upper flat on Baker's Street. Sherlock had already re-papered the wall above the couch, replacing his 'Doctor' theme with a new 'Margie' theme. Pictures, maps detailing her whereabouts of the last few weeks, a photocopy of her birth certificate, her cell phone records from the past few months-all of it was stapled or pinned or taped up onto the wall and Sherlock presided over it all. John had taken to sitting down in the recliner, his favorite Union Jack pillow in his lap, from where he watched Sherlock think and waited to be asked to do something Sherlock could easily do himself. Rory was two levels below them, looking up the woman on the TARDIS computers, the Doctor hoping she would know something the police wouldn't be able to get their hands on. Said man had taken a seat as well, this time in the chair Sherlock usually reserved for playing his violin. The Time Lord had been sitting in the same position for hours—hunched over, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He stared straight ahead at the floor, every now and again talking himself through some possibility or another. But overall the Time Lord had been unusually quiet. Amy was starting to worry.

"What's up?" she asked bluntly, crouching down before the man and cutting off his attempts to burn a whole in the floor of the flat with the intensity of his gaze.

"Amy… have you ever had an idea that you really don't like what it's insinuating?" The Doctor questioned, looking up and into the eyes of the Scottish woman with a serious gaze.

"Um...probably. Why?" Amy asked, not really being able to remember a time like that but thinking it must have happened at some point.

The Doctor sighed and was about to continue when Rory returned, stopping to hang in the doorway.

"Nothing from the TARDIS on Margie, or…at least nothing we probably don't already know." Rory said with a shrug and a glance over to the wall of data.

Sherlock spoke up then, breaking his gaze from the wall and going over to pluck a piece of paper down but beginning with a general overview.

"Margret Ann Freedman, born April of 1986. Until recently she worked at a nearby department store as a clerk though her co-workers check out. And someone was kind enough to check out a book in her name early this morning—Little Red Riding Hood but the librarian or the security cameras didn't catch who." Sherlock recited the newest bit of information from the screen of his cell phone, reading off the text message he had gotten from Lestrade several minutes prior.

Just then the Doctor smiled, shaking his head a bit before picking it up and straightening his posture.

"It's me." He began, almost resigned to whatever fact he had discovered, "Whoever did this is going after me."

"How do you figure that?" John asked, having seen no way the Doctor could have made such a leap only with what they already knew.

"Because the book tops it off. I knew someone once, born on April 27th, 1968. She worked as a clerk at Henrik's Department Store before I met her. And the perfume Margie was wearing? It wasn't just any old scent; it could have smelled like any flower but _no_. Then the book, the book is the best bit really, so very _clever_ of them. Who does Little Red Riding Hood run away from, who eats the sweet little old granny?" The Doctor was smiling just faintly, almost bitterly, his tone taking on hints of anger when he commended the culprit for their cleverness.

"…The Big Bad Wolf?" Rory supplied, having to think back to a book he hadn't read in ages.

"Bingo! Rory wins the prize!" The Doctor said with a false sense of congratulations, pointing over to Rory as he still stood by the door before turning his gaze to the others in the room and focusing in on Sherlock, "Margret Freedman was picked for a reason, for her former job and her birthday and her age and even her favorite perfume. Even the place she was shot, though they didn't mean that, not really. The book was just screaming it at me, telling me they know much more than they ought. "

"She's meant to point us to someone." Sherlock extrapolated quickly, knowing there would be no reason for such a trail if nothing was at the end of it.

The Doctor nodded, glanced down at Amy with what he hoped was a comforting smile to negate her worried gaze and shifted a bit, as if old weights pressed down on him again, then raised his eyes and answered.

"Rose. It all points to Rose."

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><p><strong>AN: I feel a bit delightfully evil for ending this so abruptly. I almost felt like i should have ended it with a little scene with Jimmy and Mr. Hetser (any thoughts as to who those two are or what/who our main villain is? i won't tell you if you're right or wrong-even though Jimmy is a bit obvious-but I'm interested to hear your thoughts) but i thought this was much more surprising and cliffhanger-y. And i've also been contemplating a cameo by either Jack or River but i can't decide which one so I'll put it up to a vote! It won't be next chapter but, if i can figure out something for either of them to do I'd like to include them in a later chapter. So leave your vote in the comments!**

**RainbowBrains-Yeah, i liked that bit too! If not for her it would have taken them days to figure it out!**

**CountryGrl-Thanks very much! I'm very happy you're loving this so far and i hope i can continue writing stuff that doesn't disaapoint! And i think John would just be perceptive in that way, in a more emotional way then Sherlock would be.**

**And thanks to everyone else who put this as their favorites or alerts, i do appreciate that, but reviewing is great too-so i know what exactly you like about it! The next chapter should be up soon!**

**Thanks!**

**~Windy  
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	6. Mists and Memories

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who and Sherlock are the property of the BBC and the characters created by Steven Moffat. I don't claim ownership of any of the characters portrayed or mentioned in this fan fiction

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><p>"Hey."<p>

Evening had already fallen. The Doctor had been standing at the window to 221 B, his eyes closed and his shoulders slightly slumped. All that was missing was the soft light of the stars and the buildings and they would have been back on the Starship UK, Amy still in her nighty and holding Liz 10s mask in her hand. But even without the Starwhale weighing heavy on the Doctor's mind and the decision he had almost had to make weighing on his soul the Time Lord still looked…tired. It reflected in his eyes and in the slump of his shoulders and in the attempt at a smile as he turned slightly to his companion.

"Hello Amelia Pond." The Doctor said, reaching out to brush a lock of hair out of Amy's face, simply for something to do.

He had told them the whole story. It had taken hours, the entire room enraptured by the tales of department store mannequins and of Bad Wolf following them no matter how far they ran and of half Doctors being made. Amy had stayed by the Doctor's side for all of it, a hand on his arm as she sat on the floor beside him. That hand had kept him grounded, kept him from getting lost in the memories of beaches and tears and words that had been just seconds to late, of the almost joyous reunion that had only lead to more tears and gifts that could never be enough. Several times the Doctor had gotten choked up, his throat suddenly feeling painfully thick and his voice gaining pitch and loosing volume. In those moments he would place his hand over Amy's on his arm and she would turn her hand over, wrapping her fingers around the Doctor's hand and giving it a squeeze. Because that's what best friends were for, wasn't it? To hold your hand when the story got a bit too painful, a bit to close.

He told them about the good times too, about motor biking in the 1950s and 'the wee naked child' and dancing and pronunciations. And even if it didn't pertain to the case, even if the Doctor's stories weren't strictly 'data' no one stopped him. Everyone, even Sherlock-who was always eager to get on with it and catch the criminal and prove his brilliance-let the Time Lord talk. And when he was finished the Doctor ran his fingers through his hair and looked over at his companion, patting the hand that was still on his arm. John had then suggested tea and the spell that had enveloped the flat was broken. Sherlock went off into the kitchen to continue some sort of experiment and John to the kitchen to put the kettle on. That had been about two hours ago and the Doctor had since wandered to the window. That was where Amy found him.

"It's funny." The Doctor began, his gaze drifting up into the dark night sky, "You lot fought so hard to beat back the darkness- you forgot the universe was already doing it for you. And now you've covered them up."

The ginger beside him didn't respond and the next thing the Doctor knew he was being gripped by both shoulders and turned to face her. A pressure on his shoulders had him leaning down a bit and he smiled as he felt lips press against his forehead. It was a gesture he had given Amy countless times: in the middle of the Cabinet War Rooms during WWII, in the TARDIS as she sobbed and punched his chest and begged him to bring Rory back, even when he'd been watching a rewind of his life and ended up back on the Byzantium asking Amy to trust him. It was a gesture meant to comfort and soothe, meant to convey that everything would be alright in the end. But it had never been returned, never been reciprocated until now. He closed his eyes against the feeling and let himself sag against the Scottish girl as she wrapped her arms around him, each burying their faces in the others shoulder.

"You gave her the best thing you could have. If she'd stayed she would have realized you never grow old, you just keep changing and getting younger and younger…You gave her the two of you growing old together." Amy's voice was quiet and muffled by the tweed of his jacket but the Doctor still heard her, the quiet murmur of her voice in his ear as he pressed his eyes into her shoulder to keep himself from tearing up.

"…She would have liked you. You would have got on so well." The Time Lord assured her, remembering the blonde woman's bravery, his voice muffled in Amy's shirt and his arms wrapped around her shoulders.

"You always pick the good ones, don't you?" The Doctor felt Amy smile against his shoulder and he couldn't help but return it.

"The very best."

"And the prettiest. Not many buck teeth or snub noses on board the TARDIS, eh?" She said it lightly, not so much accusing as stating a teasing fact in a wholehearted attempt to cheer him up.

"No, not many." The Doctor said, picking up his head a bit now that the threat of tears had passed and huffing out a laugh against her shoulder, swaying them both back and forth slightly causing Amy to giggle.

"Right. Do I need to go and get the sword or…?" Rory trailed off from the doorway as he came up the stairs from the TARDIS, but even his words weren't meant to be taken seriously as he sensed the previous mood and decided playing up the 'protective husband' role would be most helpful.

"Aww, what's wrong? Does you're stupid face want a hug too?" Amy asked with a slight pout, the Doctor grinning at the married couple as the wife walked over and enthusiastically wrapped her arms around her husband then tilted her face up to peck him on the lips.

Sherlock watched from the entrance to the back bedrooms as the Doctor strode over and wrapped his arms around both of his 'companions'. He had recently added that word to his vocabulary, before the Doctor it would have been used in a more romantic connotation. But as he had watched the Doctor and Amy just moments before he was puzzled by their exchange. A kiss on the forehead was usually reserved for lovers in his observational experience but there seemed to be none of that between the two. And the amount of time they had spent embracing, even carrying on a conversation during it, was longer then was normally socially acceptable. And to top it off neither had taken the length of the embrace as awkward, none of the fidgeting or attempts to disengaging that would have normally happened in others he had observed. Sherlock resisted the urge to cock his head like a confused puppy at the actions of the trio. The Doctor had been melancholy, brooding even, by the window for hours and all it took was a simple hug and a few jovial questions from the Scottish girl and he was his energetic, bombastic self once more….It was downright puzzling. He would be sure to ask John about it later and collect further data on interpersonal relationships on the TARDIS.

The consulting detective watched the trio exit the flat, Amy proposing a cup of cocoa and something about ponchos to the Doctor as they walked down the stairs, seeming to offer John the same as the passed him on the first landing. He seemingly declined the offer though as several seconds later the veteran appeared in the doorway, having just been down to offer Mrs. Hudson a cup of tea with her evening herbal soother, and studied his flatmate's expression.

"They're best friends. They must have been through a lot together, out there in the universe-and it only made them closer. It's not _that_ puzzling Sherlock."

Sherlock didn't know whether to frown or to smile at John's acuity.

...

The next morning the trio was awoken by a loud and persistent banging on the TARDIS doors. The Doctor trudged tiredly up from the innards of the time machine to the main console room, his cat slippered feet echoing slightly on the grating and the room lighting up as he flipped a switch and patted the console in passing. The Time Lord hadn't slept that well in quite a long time and it was thanks to Amy and Rory and ponchos and hot coco the night before. The TARDIS herself had helped as well, dimming the lights and her own humming into a kind of lullaby for her Doctor. He ran a hand through the flop of his hair—even floppier then usual due to his bedhead—and tied the belt of his robe (the pattern more befitting 80's style wallpaper then a house robe but the Doctor liked it just the same) before opening the TARDIS door.

"Good morning Doctor Watson." The Doctor greeted the fellow doctor, the man also still in his pajamas.

"Morning. Sorry about the hour but Sherlock's just gotten a look at the CCTV footage from last night. There's something you really need to see."

So, around five minutes later, a pot of coffee had been put on and the inhabitants dragged from their beds with promises of TARDIS-made Danish ("The old girl makes a mean pastry!" according to the Doctor) to gather in the console room and go over the footage Sherlock had received. No one commented on the consulting detectives blue silk robe as he handed the Doctor the DVD and declined a cup of coffee or a pastry, watching as the footage was broadcast on the TARDIS's large main screen. He simply requested a quick tutorial on the methods for controlling the DVD before getting down to business, fast-forwarding the grainy film as he spoke.

"I was going over this this morning—most of it is useless rubbish—when I happened to see something a bit off."

"Did it catch the murdered?" the Doctor inquired from his seat in one of the TARDIS's leather mini-sofas.

"That and a bit more." John replied as Sherlock found his place in the film and instructed it to play.

As the film began to play at normal speed nothing could be seen for several seconds until the woman from last night, alive and running for her life, ran across the screen. Just a few feet behind her…_something_ followed. A kind of oblong mass of glowing blue, moving across the screen behind the woman, through which neither the gun nor the person holding it could be seen. But, just as the crime scene had shown, several seconds later the woman fell dead on the pavement. The blue form made no movement for several seconds before simply turning around and walking out of frame.

"Come on, we can do better than that!" The Doctor exclaimed as he stood and took to the TARDIS controls, "Sherlock, rewind it a bit, to just before Margie was shot, and then pause."

Sherlock complied as the Doctor fiddled with the controls, slowly turning a knob this way or that and pushing a slider farther and farther over by tiny increments. Eventually, after several moments of adjusting, the image quality greatly improved and a soft glow could be seen around the blue mass through which the outline of a human form could be made out. The Doctor dashed from the controls over to the screen, taking a place directly in front of it and laying a finger on the blue form.

"That" he said, tapping the screen with an index finger, "Is an energy based life form. Usually non corporeal, certainly not substantial enough to grab hold of a gun."

"What, like a…a ghost or something?" Rory asked, a ghost being the only energy based thing he could come up with.

"Yes, but they're normally quite nice. Well…at least nice enough not to go walking about and commit murder." the Doctor replied, his eyes still fixed to the image on the screen.

"It possessed someone; you can see a form through the glow. Male, shorter in stature and stockier suggesting an older age—in its 50's at least. More than likely a previously deceased person, ghosts don't traditionally possess bodies already occupied." Sherlock said, his gaze drifting to the Doctor to confirm or deny his deduction.

"Correct! Which means, assuming that the body is dead and judging from the blue glow, we've got a Gelth on our hands." The Doctor concluded, taking a step back from the screen and crossing his arms.

"A what?" John wanted to clarify, the Doctor had never mentioned the word before and he was making the clear distinction between it and a ghost.

"A Gelth, John. An alien without a body of its own, really. Well, not with a body anymore—billions of them converted their bodies into gas forms a bit ago then lost them completely. They slipped through the Rift and went body snatching-they need lots of gas in their environment to survive and a decomposing body was just perfect. But they got spotted every now and again and the humans that saw them took to calling them ghosts or even angels—they're even where Dickens got his idea for the Christmas Carol." The Doctor said, seeming proud to know that fact first hand and a slightly smug grin crossing his face.

"So...this one's walking around in a dead guy killing other people?" Amy asked from her seat beside Rory, gesturing to the image on the screen.

"Not on its own. A Gelth would have no reason to kill a human on their own—they don't care what body they take and they're millions of them ready for the taking already." The Doctor said, his voice growing quiet and speculative as he tried to puzzle it out.

"Which means it was hired. It was a contract killing." John said with a fair amount of certainty, "But what's the payoff for it? If I were an alien without a body I wouldn't need money or protection or status—there'd be nothing for me to do with it."

"Right again! The only thing you could offer a Gelth after it's got hold of a body is to let it stay there." The Doctor said, frowning heavily, "But even that wouldn't work for long. A Gelth can't stay in a body for too long, they lose their grip on it eventually. But Gelth are normally slow, normally shrieking their heads off and puffing out gas everywhere…For this one to look normal, to be able to move a corpse that well, to be able to pick up a gun and pull the trigger…How old are you?"

The Doctor's question was aimed at the image of the Gelth still frozen on the screen, the man seemingly amazed by his own suggestion.

"Lestrade will be useless—what little evidence there was would just lead back to an already dead person and the case would grow cold. We'll have to subvert the police entirely." Sherlock said, though in his mind Lestrade was useless the majority of the time, "They're investigation techniques are useless in this case: the murder was committed in a high traffic area overnight, any footprints would be covered by tire marks the following morning and there wouldn't be many witnesses due to the late hour. The only object with any viable evidence would be the fingerprints on the gun—and whoever this is isn't stupid enough to hold it bare handed."

"That's nothing new; the police are always in over their heads with this sort of thing. They normally call me themselves, but I don't seem to be much known yet." The Doctor said, stepping back from the screen and back over to the TARDIS console, missing the glance John took at Sherlock as the alien's words reminded him of a certain flatmate of his, "So we'll just have to do this all on our own! Look up any recently missing bodies in their 50s for starters."

"Well, how do we know they stole it? Couldn't they have just fished it out of the Thames or something?" Amy suggested, not seeing why criminals would go to the trouble of stealing an already recognized body.

"They _could_ but the Gelth would have to look normal enough to make its way to the site of the murder. Can't do that all filled with river water, can you Pond? Hehe…'Pond'." The Doctor chuckled at his own little joke but a glare from Amy sobered him quickly, "Carting it around in a special car would seem too suspicious, even that late at night. Big black car driving around late at night would seem strange, but an old man taking a stroll is perfectly normal. Humans just dismiss things that they think are none of their business—like why an old man is about in the middle of the night or an old police box in the middle of nowhere—but slap a suspicious looking car in the road and they stick their noses right in. No, they'd need a healthy body, one not yet buried, but not one that would have made the news. And one whose family wouldn't go poking their noses when their loved ones body disappeared…Doesn't leave many options, does it?"

"Well, at least we have something to go on." John said with a sigh, thinking this case would be something of a challenge.

...

"Hellooooo." he called through the flat from the foyer.

His voice was much louder then it needed to be, he knew, but causing his newest partner in crime some small bit of annoyance every now and again was always a joy. He had set the good Mr. Matthew Hetser up with this small flat some weeks ago along with a sizeable budget for food (the man ate like a horse for every meal).

"I've told you. I. Can. Hear. You." His 'partner' didn't seem to think it was very funny as he reached the den, speaking at a normal volume despite the white earbuds in his ears and the music he knew was blaring from them as well as the television.

"I can't fathom how." He said as he walked further into the den and picked up a trinket from the coffee table, "You'll be overjoyed to know our little friend is doing his job just splendidly! I wouldn't be surprised if both of them have figured it out by now."

His voice was bright and cheery, as he was certainly overjoyed with how well this was all going. And Matthew was a great help, warning him ahead of time how to twist and turn his plan so as not to fall to easily into the Doctor's hands. Trying to outwit the world's only consulting detective was easy, but he as well as a Time Lord was a bit more difficult.

"Might as well give them the rest of today before the next one; let them get busy searching for the body." He said, even though it really didn't matter what his 'partner' thought of that plan.

"Tell me something, Jim." Matthew began with a friendly smile, his fingers laced and his hands held beneath his chin, "Why bother with the Doctor? _You_ don't really care about him, he's none of _your_ concern…You won't be able to weather the Storm you're bringing down on yourself."

"Oh, can't i? Dear Matthew, you underestimate the power of guns and brute force! Such delightful tools, so very effective against the ones who _don't use them_. And why? Because he's in the way of our little game, Sherlock's and mine. He is an unnecessary piece on the board but one that's turning out to be spectacularly fun!" he said, replacing the trinket and tucking his hands into his pocket, "But…you almost make it sound like he's your concern…"

The pair locked eyes for just a moment, the tension in the room palpable, before Matthew stood up from his seat on the sofa and walked to stand in front of him. The two stood almost eye to eye, the other man only several inches taller. Then, Matthew smiled (a gesture which he quickly returned) but up close it was easy to see the ice and fire in dear Matty's eyes.

"As a matter of fact he is. The Doctor and I…let's just say we have a history and leave it at that, huh Jimmy?" The question wasn't really a question; he simply wasn't going to be told any more than that.

"Yes, let's…." the threat was only thinly veiled though all the other man did was smile, as if he were nothing more than the smallest of mice.

The smile grew a bit tighter, a bit more strained as the black fury boiled up at the utter superiority in his accomplice's eyes and threatened to swallow him up. But before it could he bid his adieus to Matthew quickly and exited the flat, pausing outside for a moment to adjust his tie. He had to admit he didn't know much about Matthew—all background checks turned up normal, but regardless of his 'history' with the Doctor or how much of a concern the Doctor was to Matthew Hetser…he would not be allowed to get in the way.

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><p><strong>AN: So, a bit more plot development in this chapter and a bit more about Mr. Hetser. I've always loved the Amy and 11 friendship moments so i stuck one in at the start of this, but it was also partially for you Rose fans who would like to see 11 think about Rose more. The next chapter will include the next murder as well as Jack since he got the most votes (I'll try and stick in a bit of River lending the Doctor a hand for CountryGrl). If you didn't understand what 11's slippers look like picture a cat stuffed animal that has a hole cut in it's back. Now stick your foot in the hole. Voila! Cat slippers!**

Now, on to answering reviews-which now are in the double digits!

**CountryGrl-You'll have to wait and see won't you? You're close, though it won't be that obvious a victim choice. And i will be using that fantastic idea of your as to how to intro Jack as a launching pad (and give you credit, of course) so thank you!**

**duststalker-Sorry that i didn't make it clear-the victim was meant to make the Doctor think of Rose, no one's actually after her. Besides, i assume at this point she's still in that alternate dimension so no one could really get at her.**

**Suzette- It's mostly that once i start a chapter i get on a roll and finish it compounded with the fact that once a chapter is finished i can never hold onto it very long. I have no idea how some authors can go that long without updating, i know i never could in a story i was interested in and one people like! It would drive me crazy! And unfortunately no, unfortunately there probably won't be any references to 1-8 simple because i haven't watched anything before the 2005 season :P.**

**And to all you Jack or Torchwood fans, do you have any characterization tips for dear Captain Harkness? I've only seen a few episodes of Torchwood and the episodes of Doctor Who he's been in so i don't feel i have a grasp of him besides his massive flirty side.**

**Also, for all you Whovians be sure to pick up (or just give a listen to) Chameleon Circuits newest album 'Still Got Legs'-it's full of really awesome rock songs, all of them based off of Doctor Who! You can listen to it at http: /alex day music . com /261 / (just remove the spaces). I really adore it so i wanted to share it! And, finally, i made this fic a kind of 'poster' or 'cover'-link is in my profile!  
><strong>

**Thanks!**

**~Windy**


	7. Should Be A 'Captain' In Here Somewhere

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who and Sherlock are the property of the BBC and the characters created by Steven Moffat. I don't claim ownership of any of the characters portrayed or mentioned in this fan fiction.

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><p>Sherlock seemed to belong in a morgue. They had so much in common—both cold and stern, both starkly pale with black accents. Both were places that commanded respect the moment you laid eyes on them and both were largely unemotional with a clinical feel. And if Sherlock was the morgue than John would have been the morgue attendant—looking after the place to make sure it ran smoothly, that it's cold and uninviting air was lessened somewhat, to bring a touch of humanity to the place. Of course, John would never tell Sherlock any of this, the consulting detective would no doubt claim he could very well look after himself and John was simply there to 'help him make a point'. But the both knew that wasn't true.<p>

That thought was pervasive in John's mind as the consulting detective and his doctor walked into the county morgue. They were there on 'official business', granted full access to all the files, records and security camera footage the place had to offer thanks to a little slip of slightly physic paper. Sherlock may have overdone it judging by the look on the employees face when he'd flashed the paper but it had gotten the desired result. The pair of them were now in the main archives room scouring through files and official documents, looking for anyone that might fit the bill. Luckily there weren't as many 50 year old male bodies that had been removed from the place within the past two weeks as John had feared, but they still had quite a bit to look through and already had a stack of possibilities going. At the sound of a ringtone (one of the preset ones, nothing upbeat or complicated, a simple one note ring—Sherlock expected nothing less of him) John set down the file he was currently skimming; his cell phone was signaling it had received a text message.

"The Doctor wants to know how it's going." John announced, reading off the text he'd received from the number labeled 'TARDIS'.

"Why didn't he just text my phone? It would have been faster than using you as a middleman." Sherlock asked, looking up from his bit of documentation, clearly stumped by social conventions once more.

"…Because he thinks you wouldn't have answered." John read off from the text message he had received the moment Sherlock finished speaking, then from the one after that as his phone pinged again, "'No, because I _know_ he wouldn't have answered. Would have thought I was being nosy and ignored it. Read more carefully John.'"

This had Sherlock frowning, looking directly up and into the corner of the room to see the security camera that he clearly knew would be there. The red light was on and it was pointed directly at him but in the next moment the camera moved back and forth a bit, its version of a wave, when it noticed Sherlock's gaze. He could practically feel the Doctor grinning at him, tapping the smaller TARDIS screen with a finger and muttering 'clever, clever Sherlock' at the image.

"It would be going much better if you trusted me to do my work, Doctor. Really, I'm a bit wounded! Besides, I hate backseat investigators." Sherlock spoke to the camera in his usual deadpan snark as he reached up and, finding the power cord at the back of the camera, pulled the plug.

John's phone pinged again a moment later. He couldn't help but smile at the message as Sherlock took the phone to view it himself:

_ :( _

John thought he caught the beginnings of a smirk cross Sherlock's face as he canceled out of the text message and handed it back, immediately returning to what he had been doing as if the work had never been interrupted. John was soon to follow suite, combing through yet another file. According to what Sherlock had said earlier that day back in the TARDIS this person was far too young to be their suspect: the man was in his mid-30s and much too tall to match up with the security footage. That file was swiftly set aside and another taken up- this was the way it continued for the better part of twenty minutes. No one ever said investigative research was always exciting.

"John, have a look at this." Sherlock entreated some time later, holding one file in particular and studying its contents.

John walked around the table to the consulting detective's side, glancing at the file in his hands. There was no photo of the corpse (though it wasn't the only file missing one) but the name at the top read 'ROBERT WILLINGHAM' in neatly hand-written print. This man, unlike so many of the others, fit the height and age requirements very nearly perfectly and there were no list of contacts or a family history below.

"'Complications from gunshot wound to shoulder.' "John recited from the coroner's messy shorthand (a different handwriting then the one at the top of the page giving the basic information) that detailed his or her findings, "Well, that's probably what killed him. A shoulder wound would be easy enough to hide, wouldn't it?"

Sherlock nodded and was about to speak when a noise reached both their ears: the deep murmur of a man's voice followed by the higher one of a woman's. They duo glanced at each other with eyebrows raised—the person who let them in was a woman as well as the archivist. There would be no reason for a man to have gotten far back enough for the pair to be able to pick up his voice. And was that…an American accent? Sherlock promptly put the file down as both he and John broke for the door within the same moment.

"Captain Jack Harkness, ma'am-a pleasure to make your acquaintance." The man who the voice belonged to flashed the woman (who Sherlock saw was clearly a bit dazzled by the stranger if the dilation of her pupils and the nervous smoothing of her blouse was anything to take into account) a winning smile.

"_You_." John exclaimed as he laid eyes on the man, the long great coat and flirtatious manner proving unmistakable even without the unusual accent.

Captain Harkness paused in dazzling the woman into a stupor long enough to look for the source of the voice. Once he found it he turned the same winning smile onto the veteran (an unconscious gesture in Sherlock's opinion but one that made him frown heavily nonetheless) and walked towards the pair.

"John, right? I remember you; we met last month over a mutual case in Regent Park. And I _also_ remember you declined my offer for drinks." Jack was smiling now, recalling the way the man had stuttered through abating the offer, "And there he is, Mr. Sherlock Holmes-still as tall, dark and devilishly handsome as ever! You boys look well!"

Sherlock's former opinion was reaffirmed: he hated Captain Jack Harkness.

….

The trio's returned to Baker's Street was rather loud. Sherlock would have much preferred the trio to have remained its usual duo but Captain Harkness had simply insisted upon following them back to the flat. Within it the Doctor poked his head up and frowned at the sounds echoing up from the stairs; Sherlock didn't normally argue so vehemently (certainly not with John) and that American accent didn't belong to either of-…Wait.

"I told you I didn't 'steal' the case! If anything you two stole it from Torchwood—it was put under our jurisdiction!" Jack shot back as he entered the door to 221B right behind John, his argument focused on the consulting detective.

"Erroneously put under your jurisdiction! There was nothing remotely supernatural about a shooting! And your precious Torchwood wasn't the one who solved the case, was it?" Sherlock's voice was downright icy but steadily gaining volume as his frustration levels rose.

"Jack?"

The Doctor's exclamation stopped the argument cold as both men turned to look at the Timelord—Sherlock with a much less puzzled look then Captain Harkness, a look equally shared with Amy, Rory and John as well. Unbenounced to the Ponds the cab ride back to the flat had been exhaustive for the veteran, filled with icy yet witty retorts being flung back and forth. John had taken that time to think back on their first interaction with the man: several months back a case had appeared- a man had been found dead in his flat of strangulation yet no foot or fingerprints or signs of entry had been found. Sherlock had claimed it would be solved easily enough and just as the pair was about to begin their investigations Lestrade had stepped in with the claim they were off the case. Sherlock, of course, had immediately denied the concept and demanded an explanation-yet the only one Lestrade would offer up was 'Torchwood'. But even with Lestrade's decree, like a bloodhound on a scent, Sherlock refused to be taken off the case until finally, as the pair continued their investigations under the radar, they had been confronted by Jack. Eventually it had all been resolved, Sherlock left with the case and a bad taste in his mouth and John rather flustered by Jack's repeated attempts to flirt with them both. And this encounter wasn't shaping up to be any better as Jack had once again stumbled upon the same case as the consulting detective.

"Oh, right—new face." The Doctor said as he came to sort of realization, before reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out the sonic, extending it, and buzzing it around, " 'A sonic what?'"

In that moment Jack's face undeniably lit up, the phrase apparently setting it all into place for him (though, unfortunately, not for anyone else in the room—the Ponds and John still stood in confusion by the sidelines).

"Screwdriver!" Jack answered as he strode forward and wrapped his arms around the Doctor's slender frame, "Doctor! Oh, is it ever good to see you!...A bit younger since last time, in some worlds I could be arrested for flirting with you now. And what's with the 'nerdy professor' look?"

"And you're a bit grayer round the hair than last time, I wasn't going to mention it!" was the Doctor's lighthearted retort as Jack released him, both men having had the chance to give each other a good look.

"Doctor, who is this?" Rory inquired, feeling the need to break up their happy reunion since it looked like they weren't going to get answers unless someone asked the questions.

"Amy, Rory, this is Captain Jack Harkness—I met him a few regenerations back in WWII London." The Doctor introduced, turning the Captain round to face his newest set of companions.

"Hi." Another winning smile emerged on Jack's face, this time directed and both the Ponds simultaneously, and it turned amused as he watched Amy unconsciously return it and Rory both puff his chest out and squirm.

"Stop it." The Doctor's voice with a hint of reproach in Jack's direction before he turned to Sherlock and John, "Now, the question is how do you two know him?"

"He took the liberty of stealing—" Sherlock began but was swiftly cut off by Jack.

"We thought one of Sherlock's cases fell under Torchwood's jurisdiction. We took the liberty of shifting it over to us and taking it off his hands. Turns out we were wrong and it was just a completely terrestrial inside job." Jack said, tucking his hands into the pockets of his military coat.

"A completely terrestrial inside job that ultimately John and I solved." Sherlock interjected, still clearly remembering and still clearly angry about the whole ordeal months later.

"So you picked up this case too? This 'Torchwood' thing?" Amy asked, having that come up as the only viable explanation.

"Yep, and this time we were right: you've got a Gelth on your hands Doctor. Though I'm guessing you already figured that part out." Jack asked as he turned his attention to the Timelord.

"Grabbed the CCTV footage from the parking garage—luckily the camera caught it." The Doctor said, hoping Sherlock was willing to go over the footage with Jack if the Captain wanted to have a look, but when the Doctor looked over it seemed Sherlock was engrossed in his cell phone.

The consulting detective's next words sent chills down the Doctor's spine.

"It's happened again."

….

It was in the park this time. Her body lay on its side in the grass, one arm reaching out in front of her and the other tucked against her side. Her blood stained the grass an inky black, only noticeable when you stood before her, towered over her and gazed down at just the right angle. This was where they stood now, the four of them surrounding the body. John was kneeling down beside her, crouched down on his toes and, with latex gloved hands, brushed aside her hair to get a look at her face. She was young, pretty with pale skin and dressed casually. She would have seemed to be sleeping until you turned her over onto her back. The Doctor grimaced at what he saw.

A gruesome hole had been shot through her chest, a handgun at contact shot range to Sherlock's eye. Her front was soaked in blood, parts of her neck and cheek spattered with it from the force of the bullets exit. Said bullet had been found nearby, the shell casing partially hidden in the grass some several feet away. She was Georgina Rumens and she was dead.

"Shot with something high caliber then, judging from the exit wound." Anderson, his voice grating on Sherlock's ears and nerves as the man approached the group and took in the sight.

"Anderson, please do us all a great service and but out. Even our combined intellect couldn't hope overcome your raging stupidity this close up." Sherlock shot back with an icy glare to the man.

"And who is this?" Anderson pressed on anyway and ignoring Sherlock's usual snark; pointing to Jack was a more then skeptical look.

"Jack Harkness, head of Torchwood." Jack's answer was surprisingly short and clipped compared to his normally talkative self, the immortals eyes never lifting from the dead woman at his feet.

"About the gun, it wasn't high caliber. It was a handgun, no more than a .45. Definitely a contact shot. You can see the powder burns around the wound." John's voice from the ground, swiftly cutting Anderson off before he had a chance to question Jack's presence further as well as confirming what Sherlock had already observed.

"Can I get a look at that bullet?" Jack asked as he looked at the body, a moment later the evidence bag containing said bullet being handed over.

With a white gloved hand Jack extracted the bullet casing from the plastic and knelt down in the grass. Under the watchful eyes of the four other men Jack placed the bullet on the bag and took a small, silver device out of his pocket. It sort of resembled a camera with an unusually large screen on the back and dials on the sides. The 'lens' was flat, lacking any kind of zooming function of a normal camera. Pressing the button at the top Jack took an image of the bullet with the device, carefully manipulating the dials on the sides until the image seemed to be viewed in a different setting—similar to setting a camera to night vision post image capture.

"Yep, it's definitely our guy." Jack said as he studied the image, very small traces of a blue glow seemingly covering the casing's surface.

"Are you able to make out any fingerprints?" John asked, leaning closer to the Capitan to see the image for himself.

After a few more moments twisting dials Jack shoot his head and spoke:

"No good, it looks like whatever it's made of is creating a micro thin layer between it and the actual skin. So it can still manipulate things with its bare hands but without leaving visible fingerprints. This thing is either really smart or just got really lucky."

"Wait, what are you saying? You already know who did this?" Anderson again but with a quick look from Sherlock to Lestrade he was quickly dispatched from the immediate area, however disgruntled he might have been.

"May as well dust for them, we might be able to get a few lifted from it. Check the area for footprints as well; the same thing might not have applied to shoe prints. These things aren't supposed to stay in the body long so they might not know all the little tricks and side effects. Right, Doctor?" John asked as he straightened and took off his slightly bloodied gloves.

But the Doctor wasn't listening, at least not immediately. The Time Lord was gazing down at the body of Georgina Rumens, his expression hidden by the low light as well as the fringe of his hair. But after a mere moment's hesitation the Time Lord looked up at the sound of his name, all vim and vigor once more, only this time slightly dimmed.

"Um, yes! The fingerprints were probably a stroke of luck, not intentional. It could have gotten overconfident and made the mistake of thinking any shoe prints would be covered as well." The Doctor concurred, scratching the back of his head in some sort of nervous manner seemingly at being caught daydreaming.

Shortly after the body was packed up and put into the ambulance on its way to the morgue. The quartet stood back behind the police tape, watching the proceedings from a distance.

"Sherlock." The Doctor called, interrupting the consulting detective in his gazing at the text messages on his phone and waiting for him to look up before continuing, "Georgina Rumens, we'll need to get together everything about her we can drum up. He won't use the same details again but whatever he will use is going to be miniscule."

Sherlock nodded and went to speak to a police officer about getting the necessary documentation, noticing the Doctor's refusal to look anywhere but forward or the tense but somehow resigned set of his shoulders.

"She's definitely part of it, whoever she's supposed to point us too." The Doctor said with a matter-of -factness that could not be questioned.

"'Part of it?' Part of what?" Jack asked, having not been around for the first murder or to hear the conclusion that had been made from it.

"The first murder the Gelth committed, it was meant to make us look at Rose Tyler. One of the Doctors companions." John answered, not sure how much of the Doctors past lives or past friends Jack was aware of.

"Are you sure? How did you figure-"

"Jack, they knew about Bad Wolf." The Doctor firmly interjected, cutting off the Capitan's line of questioning, "They knew about Bad Wolf and her birthday and the department store. It was her. And this one is someone else."

"God…But how do they know all this? Bad Wolf isn't exactly world news Doctor." Jack said, slightly disturbed by the idea of someone with knowledge of what he thought was exclusive to those involved.

"It doesn't matter how they know, what matters is who Georgina will point us too. If we can figure out that much we might be able to predict the next victim and catch him in the act, see whose body the Gelth is possessing and that will lead us to who's behind this. Or we would be able to if the victim pool weren't so large. He's going by intimate details-which means he had access to public records; birth certificates and resumes, as well as things only they would know. There should be something like Bad Wolf about this case too, something only whoever Regina leads us too or the Doctor would know." Sherlock said, watching as the crime scene was slowly clearing out.

"It's not all that bad—we do have a way to predict who'll be next. He going by my companions, but probably only the ones that were the most significant—Georgina probably isn't meant to be Mickey or Jackie—so if we follow that method it narrows things down. And we've got those files you two borrowed from the morgue today; if we can narrow those down as well we'll have our body." The Doctor reassured, not liking the dark and hopeless picture Sherlock had begun to create for their situation.

"Well, let's get started then. First thing tomorrow we'll find out who this one is and hopefully get the bottom of this before anyone else finds a bullet in their chests." Jack said as the quartet made a simultaneous decision to begin the walk back to Bakers St.

But it wasn't finding the Gelth's body that worried the Doctor; the Timelord knew they would be able to pinpoint it eventually. Or who this victim or even the next would end up being if they couldn't solve it in time. No, what worried the Doctor was the possibility of having been watched all along, someone on the sidelines watching for details they could call back to-all in preparation for this.

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><p><strong>AN:** First and for most i have to apologize for how long it took me to get this up-life just threw me one curve ball after the other! But i hit them all and i managed to get this chapter finished and I'm quite happy with it. I tried to contact my beta reader so she could look this over before i put it up but seems to be having a problem with it's email system. So if i do get in touch with her this will probably get a revision of some kind. I hope i did alright with keeping Jack in character and he might be sticking around to help out! Reviews for this are now in the 20s which i'm very happy about, so thanks to everyone who put this on their favorites or alerts lists or took the time to review!

**Leesy**-Hello fellow citizen of Nerdfighteria! Thanks a lot! I know what you mean, i still can't get over how long we have to wait for Sherlock now. I guess it makes sense though, i have no idea why we thought it would be coming back next month when they were clearly still filming.

**Tapix**-Facepalmed in a good way or in a bad way? Lol. The Doctor's level of ridiculousness when it comes to clothes knows no bounds!

**ThePhoenix'sSong**-I tried to add a bit more of them in the start of this chapter but how do you think i did?

Thanks again to all of my lovely reviewers! And points to you if you can guess which movie the title for this chapter is paraphrased from.

EDIT: Okay, the smiley that the Doctor sends John and Sherlock is supposed to be an angry face, but the website won't keep the greater than sign that makes it angry. Just so you know.


	8. Anger in the Eyes of the Storm

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who and Sherlock are the property of the BBC and the characters created by Steven Moffat. I don't claim ownership of any of the characters portrayed or mentioned in this fan fiction.

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><p>It was horrifying. It was as if It had taken shape, taken on a physical form and burrowed Itself within his skull, using Its horrid little paws to wear…no…not wear…to rip and claw in a desperate attempt to force Its way out from within. He was convinced, completely convinced, that any day now It would manage to break through-blood and gore painting the four walls of the flat that surrounded him and forcing him into a heap on the floor. But It didn't make haste in Its work, oh no, It took as much time as It could, tearing at the inside of his skull one agonizing cut and slice after another. He would almost expect blood to be seeping out of his ears, a gentle flow that would stain the collar of his jumper as it dripped down his neck.<p>

If he were to die, if It happened to succeed and force Its way out from within his skull Jimmy would be the one to find him there; find him dead in a deep pool of blood and brain matter whenever the human next deigned to drop in. Jimmy would be the only one, the only one that could possibly happen upon his body. He didn't know, He wasn't aware of him yet. The humans around Him, those two pairs of heartbeats that now almost constantly surrounded Him would drown him out. He felt the urge to rush from the building and go to him, go directly to him and beg him to do what he had promised all that time ago. He knew the way; he had memorized every possible route he could take, mapping them out one by one in his mind even as It tried to tear it down.

His thumb twitched on the dial of the mp3 player, attempting to increase the volume yet again and yet again finding it to be at the maximum level. He frowned: that volume level wouldn't even come close to drowning It, pushing It from his mind and stop Its horrifying efforts to burst Its way through his skull. The volume level didn't even manage to drown out Jimmy's voice when he would come (unannounced) to talk to him about this step or that move in 'their' plan. He honestly couldn't care less about the precious plan, it didn't matter what their next move was or how clever dear old Jimmy thought himself to be. It wasn't time yet. He could feel it, that moment was still far off in the distance still but steadily approaching. He could feel the waves and ripples it created in the sea that was all of time and space, he could feel those ripples somewhere deep within him, feel them gently pressing against his skin. It was a fixed event, heavily tethered to the bottom of that sea and not one thing—no plan Jimmy could conjure up, no counter move his precious Sherlock could make, no random happening of chance or fate could shake it loose. The moment when he would finally meet Him again, that moment was fast approaching. Now all he could do was hope he would be there for it.

…

The Doctor had long ago decided assumptions were a bad idea. They normally turned out to be completely false and only lead to disappointment or something much worse ending up as reality. But he couldn't help himself; his brain (much like Sherlock's he imagined) was looking for any pattern it could grasp in this maelstrom of a situation. Right now he was assuming Georgina was meant to lead them to Donna as, technically, that had been the sequence of his companions: Rose, then Donna for a moment, then Martha, then back to Donna before regenerating and picking up the Ponds. But he highly doubted whoever masterminded all of this was would stoop to repetition—that they would kill two humans that lead to Donna instead of one. And if he was making assumptions about the identity of the victim then he might as well start making other assumptions too: perhaps the clincher would be the DoctorDonna or a reference to their first trip to the Ood Sphere. The Doctor caught himself then-all these assumptions would only make him careless; careless or angry. And in the Doctor's case getting overemotional in any sense clouded his logic. The TARDIS hummed around him as if she were agreeing; she'd known that all along and he'd even heard her point it out in those brief 41 minutes he'd been able to hear her do anything. He smiled a bit, ghosting his fingers over the glass of the time rotor in silent thanks: his old girl would always keep him in check. He let the warmth of it seep into his fingers, down his arm and into his chest where he hoped it would dissolve the tight knot of anger and guilt and call to rash actions that had nestled itself in between his hearts. He just wanted the killings to stop, for this sick game to end and to be off again; spinning and hurling through the time vortex bound for another world. Maybe even take Sherlock and John with them—two more humans in the TARDIS wouldn't hurt. Neither would another set of hands to help fly her, he was sure he could teach Sherlock just as well as he did Rory.

"Not too many for you, is it dear? Bit crowded with four humans but we could do with the company." He murmured, his palm stroking over the glass.

But who said that the consulting detective and his doctor would want to tag along with this Doctor? Who said they would want to go gallivanting off through the universe? Who said the both of them weren't perfectly content with their lives and were glad to keep their feet firmly within their own time? Just yesterday the Doctor had been informed of Sherlock's previous disregard for the universe and its order—who said that he didn't still hold that opinion and had no desire to see it?...Who said the Ponds wouldn't remember the sheer attractiveness of mundane, earth bound life that Sherlock and John had?...Who said that when this was over Amelia wouldn't realize how dangerous being his companion truly was and want to be taken back to boring little Leadworth?...

The Doctor's hand was still, now simply resting on the glass of the time rotor, its internal warmth doing nothing to dispel this new knot of panic slowly forming in his chest, threatening to lodge in his throat and stop his breath cold.

Assuming was dangerous.

Two floors above the Doctor the moon was high and bright in the of the sky above the flat. Not a soul was awake save for one: Sherlock Holmes. Bent over the morgue files, the ones he and John had collected before the Capitan had interfered, Sherlock searched. Like a hound on a scent he searched, searched for the answer to this latest puzzle. Perhaps not for the reasons others would have liked but the byproduct would be a good one in the end, a pleasant side effect of finding the answer and solving the problem. John had suggested once that it should be his main goal, his driving force to solving these cases. But Sherlock had quickly set his doctor to rights, it didn't matter what he driving force was just as long as the result was the same: people would get to live.

…

The four humans (and one a-little-bit-extra Torchwood member) had been hard at work the whole of the morning, having taken half the afternoon off for tea and lunch before settling right back in to their work. They were slowly and methodically making their way through Georgina Rumen's life down the last finite detail. Her bank statements, her birth certificate, her primary school report cards; all had been dug up and were now splayed out onto the Holmes-Watson's coffee table. Some were filled with red marks, circles around possible leads and 'X's next to ones that didn't check out with either Jack or the Doctor as having any significance. The Doctor had since voiced his assumption that Georgina would point them to one Donna Noble, sighting the order that his more recent companions had first stepped in to the TARDIS console room. Sherlock had concurred that the mastermind behind this wouldn't dare repeat himself—if this pattern continued then the next victim (if there was a next, which Sherlock was firm in the knowledge that there would be soon enough) would point them to Martha Jones.

"Hey, look at this." Jack called from the sofa, a page of Georgina Rumen's medical history in his hand, "When she was eight years old she fell off of a horse and had amnesia. Could that be something?"

The Doctor strode forward a few paces and grabbed the paper out of Jack's hands, holding it up so he could look at it.

"No, according to a few lines down Georgina recovered from her memory lapse several weeks later. Donna won't." The Doctor corrected, reading a few lines past were Jack had stopped, "Good thought though."

"I doubt it would be that direct anyway. Planting leads seems to be more his style instead of giving direct answers." John spoke up from his position in the doorway to the kitchen, a cup of tea in hand.

"Very good, John. It's more than likely a coincidence he found too small to scrap Georgina over." Sherlock concurred, looking over his shoulder to where Amy and Rory were seated, the both of them pouring over Georgina's resumes and career history, "Anything?"

"No, Georgina never even sent an application to a temp agency or set foot in an office building for a job." Amy said, setting down the papers she was holding with an air of surrender.

"The last thing she applied to was a medical school. She was trying to start in pediatrics." Rory followed up; glancing back at the college application in his hands to be sure he was reading it correctly.

All eyes turned to the Doctor but the look on the Timelords face was one of confusion. He picked a few choice papers from the table before just as quickly discarding them over his shoulder as he paced the room, seeming to be frantically trying to make sense of this new information, to force it to fit into the pattern that was Donna Noble's life. The Chiswick woman had never even shown an interest in medical dramas on the telly, let alone becoming a doctor. And as far as he knew she didn't hold any kind of penchant for children…or college for that matter. He had never really inquired much into Donna's childhood aspirations or teenaged goals. It was now something he thoroughly regretted.

"We were wrong." The Doctor suddenly stilled in his slightly manic riffling through the documents in his hands, stopping on the spot in the middle of the floor as all eyes in the room settled on him, "I never should have assumed."

"Assumed what?" Jack questioned from his seat, unable to see where the Doctor had slipped up.

"That it was Donna because it's not. It's Martha- Georgina Rumens points to Martha." The Doctor said, taking a seat in a nearby chair and running a hand over his face with a heavy sigh, "It fits Martha to a T. We were just too busy looking for how it was Donna to see how it wasn't."

And after a bit of searching with a redirected focus they discovered that it was, in fact, Martha that this new victim was pointing to. John was the one that found the information: a census record stated that Georgina had the same number of siblings and according to her birth certificate her family name would have been Jones if she had not taken on her mother's name: 'Jones' had been scratched out and 'Rumens' written in its place.

"Well…there goes our pattern." Jack conceded, setting the papers in his hands back on the table and sitting back in his chair.

"The next one could be anyone now that he's going out of order." John said with an air of hopelessness as he considered the sheer number of companions the Doctor had spoken of.

A thick layer of silence fell over the room at that prospect as well as the one that lay beneath it: this case, these killings, could go on indefinitely now that the killer had seemingly varied his choices. But in the minds of the cleverest men in the room the wheels were turning full bore: picking apart every shred of evidence and data that had been collected. After a moment Sherlock suddenly got up from his usual seat and walked over to the coat rack, taking one particular file from the morgue out of John's bag and throwing it down to skid across the table.

"There's our man." He said, his tone leaving no room for questioning or doubt but even then meeting it.

"How do you know?" It was Amy this time, from his seat across from Rory, all eyes in the room either turning to Sherlock or the file and back again.

"Robert Willingham, age 53, died a month and a half ago of complications from a gunshot wound to the inner shoulder. His body was removed from the morgue several weeks back but the company listed as the ones who removed it don't exist; I made sure of that during the cab ride over last night. The number listed as their contact information leads to several redirects and canceled lines. Several other numbers do the same but they are all bear signs of well-known black market organ dealers or back room forensics researchers. With all of the other files John and I collected I systematically ruled out all other possible suspects. Mr. Willingham is the only viable option." Sherlock summarized his findings of the night prior, "Now all that's left is to find-"

But Sherlock never got to finish telling the group what was left to find; from its spot on the desk his phone rang, the shrill tone startling them all. It was a few moments before Sherlock crossed the room to answer it but in that time the Doctor simply put his head in his hands, not moving to acknowledge the hand Jack had placed on his back.

The knot between the Doctor's hearts grew with every ring.

…

The scenery was new: instead of in the middle of a park or the top floor of a parking garage Rebecca Willowby lay on the shores of the river, one foot still floating in the water. The water had completely drenched her and that coupled with the wind from the night before turning her skin a sickening blue color. And instead of business dress or casual clothing she was in jogging attire: running shoes on her feet and a pedometer still clipped onto the band of her nylon windpants. The team had also simultaneously lost one member and gained two, six people at a crime scene having been deemed to much in the mad rush to leave the flat following the call from Lestrade and Jack having ultimately sacrificed his position in favor of staying behind and searching through the TARDIS database once more.

"15,649 steps. She'll have lived somewhere around here, no more than eight miles away but no less than six and most likely to the east." Sherlock said, holding the pedometer in his glove covered hands before clicking through his cell phone with the other—quickly arriving at the weather report for that area.

"How do you figure?" Rory asked, the Ponds having come along to this investigation in the groups haste to arrive at the scene—a flash of the psychic paper from Rory had ensure his and his wife's entry.

Sherlock was tempted to ignore the former query and simply continue on but unfortunately his confused look was mirrored by DI Lestrade. He managed to squelch the urge to call them stupid (John had ensured him several times that was not always as well received as the veteran tended to receive it) and bent down beside the body, first gesturing with a hand to the backs of the woman's pant legs.

"Coming from the east heading west; there are small creases along the sides of her pant legs towards the front—the wind in this area yesterday afternoon would have been blowing from behind her. The nylon of her pants is very easily creased; the wind would have been enough to create the folds as she jogged. Six to eight miles: she has fairly long legs which points to a longer stride and the brand of running shoe she's wearing isn't one a casual jogger would buy—she was able to cover a large distance in a short period of time. Finally," Sherlock explained, holding up a hand to stop Lestrade from asking how he knew she had been alive the previous afternoon, "Her body didn't take on enough water to have been in the river for more than approximately twelve to fourteen hours yet she didn't die of drowning, she died like all the others from the gunshot wound to the chest which means she was still alive yesterday afternoon."

Stunned silence from Rory for a moment before the man turned to John and asked: "Does he always do that?"—a question which Sherlock largely ignored as he turned to Lestrade.

"How much longer is this going to go on? Sherlock, I hope you know what you're-" the Detective Inspector began before being cut off.

"Yes, it's all being taken care of Detective Inspector. We should have this wrapped up soon enough and you can finally be of some use in all of this." Even with the smile and the cheery tone Sherlock supposed that that was a bit rude, but he simply had no time for those who couldn't keep up—which is precisely why he moved across the crime scene and, ducking under the police tape, walked towards the Doctor.

The Timelord stood off to the side with Amy, his jacket around her shoulders to fight off the bite of the wind. The Scottish girl hadn't wanted to go anywhere near the body and the Doctor couldn't blame her: Rory's training as a nurse provided him experience with dead bodies, but the only drenched corpse Amelia had ever come across (that he knew about anyway) was the one of her husband as she desperately tried to revive him. There should be no reason she would want to set eyes on Rebecca. And to be perfectly honest he didn't either: he would be much more content to stand by one of the police vans and keep Pond company then stand over yet another dead human…another human dead because of him. Amy wanted stay away because it was new and wrong and frightening, but the Doctor was simply too tired to force himself closer. He felt Amy's hand on his arm—she knew. For all his centuries of madness and adventures and regenerations it was Amelia Pond who never failed to read him as easily as words written on a page when it mattered. He managed a smile for her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side in a one-armed embrace just as the consulting detective arrived. The Doctor watched as Sherlock's eyes flicked over his arm around Amy's shoulders, the smile that had responded to the Doctor's still shining on her face and the Doctor could almost see the wheels in that brilliant brain turning before his focus shifted.

"How goes it detective?" The Doctor asked without the usual excited curiosity that would normally worm its way into his voice at such a question.

"As well as to be expected. I've managed to cross off several of your companions from the suspect list drawing from Rebacca's age and several other factors, however it will still-"

Sherlock was cut off by a loud, almost hysterical cry. It was the kind of cry that could never be mistaken for anything else save pure grief being expressed as sound, yet the kind of sound that was still not enough to express what the person was feeling. Sherlock turned to see an older woman in her early 50s trying to push her way through the line of police tape yet failing as he knees gave out, the arms of her husband that had been previously holding her back now turning to support her. Rebecca's parents had arrived.

The detective watched as one of the paramedics attempted to guide the woman to the back of one of the ambulances, clearly worried the woman would faint. She was in hysterics as an orange blanket was placed over her shoulders and her husband pulled her towards him, his own jaw set from the effort of holding back his own emotions. An attempt to be 'the strong one' Sherlock assumed, it would be useless for the both of them to break down in this situation.

"Sherlock."

The sound of his name from the Doctors lips pulled his attention back to the front but the look in the Doctor's eyes honestly took the detective back a bit. Anger, the likes of which he had never seen before in the eyes of any of the murderers he had encountered. It was a tightly bound thing, used to being kept in a cage and never unleashed upon the world around it save for small instances, the smallest of glimpses. Guilt was its chains, the kind of guilt that would crush any lesser man to dust under its weight, yet even the Doctor's shoulders were often slumped under it. He watched as Amy felt the Doctor tense at her side, turning her face up in puzzlement. She had never seen her Doctor in such a state; he was obviously the type to keep these things hidden from her—no doubt on some false hope to only show her the Raggedy Doctor, that mad and wonderful man she had talked of crashing into her garden when she was seven. But, Sherlock knew, this situation was to pressing for the Doctor to keep it hidden. And what was shown gave the message loud and clear.

"Yes, of course."

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><p><strong>AN:** I'm back after just under a month! School has started for most of you reading and for me too so you can all blame college for how long it took me to get this up. I've actually had it half finished for about a week now, up to that scene where Sherlock get's the phone call. The problem was i just couldn't figure out if i wanted to stop there or keep going but in the end i felt like not enough had happened in this chapter by that point and kept on going! I hope the deduction in this chapter was alright and that I've tried to vary up the crime scenes somewhat. In the end no one had a very good day in this chapter and i'd love to hear your guesses as to who is speaking and what's going on in that first scene! Jack's going to be sticking around for a bit longer it seems and this is where things really kick into high gear! I'm only anticipated two or three more chapters before the conclusion so keep reading! On to answering reviews-which are now up to 30!

**Theta Sigma** &** shinigami02master**: Thanks for pointing that out, it's these types of things I'd like you guys to point out to me so i can fix them! I can't always get everything spot on!

**Jericho:** I don't understand your question. If you mean in what episode of Doctor Who was Sherlock Holmes the general character referenced in i believe it was back in the classic age-either in an episode, an audio drama or a comic. If you mean what episode of Doctor Who was the BBC Sherlock referenced in it hasn't been as far as i know. But that's what makes crossovers fun!

**CountryGrl:** Another thanks to you for pointing out an inconsistency! I'm really glad you're enjoying how this is progressing!

**Emaelin:** Your review made my day-i'm very happy to know that this little fic is good enough to make you want to catch up in a few days!

**Everyone else:** Thank you, even those who didn't review and just favorited or alerted this fic! I'm always taking collective criticism and any ideas you want to throw at me-i know sometimes readers get scene wishlists of sorts for fanfics and I'd love to hear yours! I might end up doing a collection of one-shots of side scenes for this at some point, see what these five got up to between all that researching and standing around dead people. So if you have any prompts for that kind of a thing i'd love to hear them!


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